13 Rattles and a button. Timber rattler in my back yard...Oh MY...
By SusanLee
@SusanLee (1920)
United States
August 2, 2008 6:59pm CST
Day before yesterday I stepped out my backdoor and noticed one of the stray cats was in a strange position standing at the back fence. He was in alert mode I guess. In a split second I heard the rattler and then I saw him, about two feet on the other side of my fence, about 20 feet from my back steps.
I kid you not, that was a wad of snake coiled up singing his song. I came right in, called my mother-in-law and asked her to please tell my father-in-law to come over here and take care of it. Which he did thank-goodness.
For a split second I started to not bother with the snake, hoping it would just move along, but with three children, five Boston Terriers, six puppies, and all the places snakes can hide around here, I couldn't let it go. It was just too close to my house.
It was about four foot long, if I had been thinking I could have used my camera to get a close up, unfortunately I wasn't thinking that clear and only later went out there and got a picture of the rattlers.
If you click on the picture it will make it bigger.
1 response
@sweetdesign (5142)
• United States
3 Aug 08
Yikes! When I was a youngster we moved to a farm out in the boonies when my dad retired from the army. the place was overrun by snakes. My dad killed over 15 copperheads and rattlers that first year. I was out by my tireswing one day when I looked down and saw a snake. I told my best friend to walk away slowly then hightail it to get my dad. He came up and killed it, it was a baby timber rattler just as deadly as an adult. I was lucky cause I was out there barefoot whick was a big nono.
1 person likes this
@sweetdesign (5142)
• United States
3 Aug 08
Oh I forgot to say that your cat is one smart cat and glad that he alerted you to the snake.
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@SusanLee (1920)
• United States
3 Aug 08
That's a lot of poisonous snakes to deal with in just one year...And think about it a minute, that's just the ones you all saw and were able to kill.
Those suckers blend in so good too. Believe it or not, I really don't like to have them killed. It's not like they're trying to run someone down and bite them. They are being killed just because of what they are, and they're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It really makes me feel bad when I see one on the side of the road where someone got out and killed it because it happened to be visible at that time.
What are you going to do though? We just can't live with them, I know they don't mean any harm, but we have to do what we have to do. They are deadly.
I agree about the little cat, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have paid any attention to what was out there. Truth is, there is no telling how many times that snake has moseyed by here over the years. He just got to close that time.
@sweetdesign (5142)
• United States
3 Aug 08
Oh I agree with you. Those were just the unfortunate snakes to be found around the house where we cleared off the overgrowth. Otherwise if the snake was in the woods or round the creek we left them alone. It is sad that we are encroaching on animals areas more and more every day and yet we expect them to stay out of "our" area. We had a king snake that refused to stay out of our house back then. He was huge, beautiful and non poisoness. He liked our hot water heater and coiled around it all the time. In the beginning we would take him down to the barn to eat the mice but after "we got it through our skulls" we just left him alone and let him do what he wanted.
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