Watch yerself out there...

bigfelipe

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So I stopped by the in-laws place to use the ol' man's tie machine. Had to patch a slow leak from a nail hole. Afterwards I was talkin' with him about the tiny house trailer we're soon to break ground on and we were questioning the tire sizes, lug pattern, and spring spacing. It's been parked in the pasture behind the shop since last year. Grew over with grass during the winter. I reached down to brush the grass back from the wheel to read it and felt a odd but familiar sensation... I used to raise pythons, boas, hognose, etc. Basically anyone who's ever handled a snake knows that weird, soft, slick but not slimy feel... I saw the head dart back and pulled up just quick enough. I literally drug my finger across its head coiled up....

coiled.jpg

Then I got a shovel...

cutup.jpg

He was a little over 3'. That could have gone very different... I was legitimately shaken up for a minute thinking about it afterwards...
 
Two days ago my dad got a baby one about a foot long coiled on the top step going from the house to the garage (attached). Was going to grab a drink from the fridge and almost didn't turn the light on. Lucky he did, being barefoot and all
 
I was trimming some shrubbery in a yard I used to mow one time. I made a swipe across the top of the bush with the trimmers, came back for the next swipe and one of those about 20" long slid across the top of my left hand. I love snakes, but that scared the poop outta me
 
Little too close for comfort man.

My good friend that's like a brother to me moved to Michigan a few years ago, but his parents are still living in the next county over from us. Last week we stopped by to check in, his mom met us outside tripping out talking about a snake as big as her arm in her bathroom. A couple minutes later her husband showed up from work and we walked to the bathroom and the snake was laying on the floor with its belly on the toilet and is head drinking from the sink. I jokingly told him I had my shotgun in the car if he didn't want to have to handle it. We got it outside and he killed it. Usually don't kill black snakes but he said it would have been different if it was outside but not in the house. 68 inches total.
 

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OMG!

Is he gonna be ok?

Dunno... he was still biting at the dead grass when I walked away... Like the Black Night from Holy Grail...

picture-blackknight_montypythongrail.jpg
 
I crawled right across one going through some rhodo while trout fishing. My buddy nearly stuck his hand on it following me.

I told him since I'm a Christian and he is a lawyer it must have been divine intervention on my end and professional courtesy on his end.
 
I used to have lots of copperheads. Killed a bunch. Got really paranoid. Went a year or two without any. Good doggies. Last fall I was clearing a wood pile and towards the end I looked down and right between my slightly spread legs was a copperhead with its head up and jaws open. Before I could pee myself I threw the log down I was holding and crushed the SOB. Lucky shot or good under pressure we'll never know. But I went and had a few frosty beverages afterwards. Had a neighbor get bit taking his garbage out a few years ago. They are the muzzies of snakes.
 
I hate them bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't do snakes!!!
 
HOW SHREK LEARNED TO WEAR SHOES IN THE PASTURE


When I was about fourteen we had an old cast iron tub at one end of the stable we used as a water trough. I walked out in the pasture one fine early spring day and was going toward the stable when out from under that tub came the biggest toad frog I have ever seen coming right towards me at a rate of speed I never knew toad frogs could reach. (All my previous experiences with toad frogs were with the slow, surly kind that liked to pee on your hand and leave you checking for warts that your grandma said frog pee would inevitably give you.)

Now I, being a normal country boy, was only wearing a pair shorts in order to enjoy that fine spring sunshine. I didn't even have a pair of shoes on - at fourteen I was the normal lazy boy that wasn't gonna waste the effort to put shoes on if I didn't have to.

So there I was, barefooted, rooted to the ground with my mouth hanging open, a good ten yards or so from that tub, watching this huge toad frog come flying toward me and not even slowing down. Well, just about two or three yards before that frog got to me I saw something else moving. As I glanced back up at the that old tub I saw a sight that I will remember to my dying day - a big water moccasin raising up off the ground, like outta some dern movie and commence to start... well... snaking toward that frog, which meant of course, toward me. And I want you to know that as fast as that toad frog was, that snake was even faster.

It seamed that the universe itself just suddenly stopped and everything took on a surreal quality as those two critters raced toward my feet. I want you to know, every hair on my body was standing at attention, and if you'da ask me at that moment if I was a boy or a girl, I woulda told you "a boy", but I don't think I coulda dropped my britches and provided any proof.

Well, I'll have you to know that frog went right between my legs with that snake rapidly catching up. I will never forget the feeling of that snake, with its head held off the ground, as it slithered across my bare right foot. I turned at the waist(I was so rooted to the ground right then I don't think a Mac truck could've hit me and moved me off'n that spot) and watched as that moccasin caught up to that frog about ten feet on the other side of me.

I cringe when think about how that snake bit down on that frog right between his legs (further proof that I was a boy) when he caught up to him. That snake never laid his head on the ground, in fact, he raised it up a little higher as he turned around and headed.... wait for it.... right back toward me and the way he had come.

So here comes the snake with a mouth full of frog, frog arms and frog legs hanging outta each side of that snakes' mouth with the frogs head poking out the front, the snakes head in the air weaving back and forth headed toward that old tub. As he passed by me(about four inches from my big right toe this time), I could hear that snake slithering across the ground.

That snake made it about halfway back to that old tub before my screaming meemies kicked in and caused me to break loose from whatever spell the devil had cast over me. I strengthened my belief in superpowers that day as I began to move, not away from the snake, but towards it. The Flash himself could not have moved faster than I did and superman could not have flown any straighter, as I literally levitated over that snake to get to the stable wall where we had a bunch of tobacco sticks piled up.

I reached down and grabbed a tobacco stick and commenced to wailing on that snakes head just before he made it to that old tub. I whacked down the first couple'a times and drove him into the ground, but on that third swing I put a Babe Ruth on him that any big leaguer would've been proud of. He was just raising up off'n the ground as I made contact right under his head. I hit him so hard that it knocked the frog clean outta his mouth and he come off the ground and hit the side of the stable and fell right beside those tobacco sticks.

Needless to say, I decided to take out all my pent up fears on that snake right then. What was left when I finished could best be described as "moccasin mush". That poor old toad frog was stiff as a board when I picked him up(he still had a fang sticking out of his back that had broke off when I hit that snake).

So take my advice: when you walk out in the pasture always carry a tobacco stick and for heaven's sake put on some shoes...
 
HOW SHREK LEARNED TO WEAR SHOES IN THE PASTURE


When I was about fourteen we had an old cast iron tub at one end of the stable we used as a water trough. I walked out in the pasture one fine early spring day and was going toward the stable when out from under that tub came the biggest toad frog I have ever seen coming right towards me at a rate of speed I never knew toad frogs could reach. (All my previous experiences with toad frogs were with the slow, surly kind that liked to pee on your hand and leave you checking for warts that your grandma said frog pee would inevitably give you.)

Now I, being a normal country boy, was only wearing a pair shorts in order to enjoy that fine spring sunshine. I didn't even have a pair of shoes on - at fourteen I was the normal lazy boy that wasn't gonna waste the effort to put shoes on if I didn't have to.

So there I was, barefooted, rooted to the ground with my mouth hanging open, a good ten yards or so from that tub, watching this huge toad frog come flying toward me and not even slowing down. Well, just about two or three yards before that frog got to me I saw something else moving. As I glanced back up at the that old tub I saw a sight that I will remember to my dying day - a big water moccasin raising up off the ground, like outta some dern movie and commence to start... well... snaking toward that frog, which meant of course, toward me. And I want you to know that as fast as that toad frog was, that snake was even faster.

It seamed that the universe itself just suddenly stopped and everything took on a surreal quality as those two critters raced toward my feet. I want you to know, every hair on my body was standing at attention, and if you'da ask me at that moment if I was a boy or a girl, I woulda told you "a boy", but I don't think I coulda dropped my britches and provided any proof.

Well, I'll have you to know that frog went right between my legs with that snake rapidly catching up. I will never forget the feeling of that snake, with its head held off the ground, as it slithered across my bare right foot. I turned at the waist(I was so rooted to the ground right then I don't think a Mac truck could've hit me and moved me off'n that spot) and watched as that moccasin caught up to that frog about ten feet on the other side of me.

I cringe when think about how that snake bit down on that frog right between his legs (further proof that I was a boy) when he caught up to him. That snake never laid his head on the ground, in fact, he raised it up a little higher as he turned around and headed.... wait for it.... right back toward me and the way he had come.

So here comes the snake with a mouth full of frog, frog arms and frog legs hanging outta each side of that snakes' mouth with the frogs head poking out the front, the snakes head in the air weaving back and forth headed toward that old tub. As he passed by me(about four inches from my big right toe this time), I could hear that snake slithering across the ground.

That snake made it about halfway back to that old tub before my screaming meemies kicked in and caused me to break loose from whatever spell the devil had cast over me. I strengthened my belief in superpowers that day as I began to move, not away from the snake, but towards it. The Flash himself could not have moved faster than I did and superman could not have flown any straighter, as I literally levitated over that snake to get to the stable wall where we had a bunch of tobacco sticks piled up.

I reached down and grabbed a tobacco stick and commenced to wailing on that snakes head just before he made it to that old tub. I whacked down the first couple'a times and drove him into the ground, but on that third swing I put a Babe Ruth on him that any big leaguer would've been proud of. He was just raising up off'n the ground as I made contact right under his head. I hit him so hard that it knocked the frog clean outta his mouth and he come off the ground and hit the side of the stable and fell right beside those tobacco sticks.

Needless to say, I decided to take out all my pent up fears on that snake right then. What was left when I finished could best be described as "moccasin mush". That poor old toad frog was stiff as a board when I picked him up(he still had a fang sticking out of his back that had broke off when I hit that snake).

So take my advice: when you walk out in the pasture always carry a tobacco stick and for heaven's sake put on some shoes...

This reads like a Patrick McManus short story. You should start writing
 
You were very lucky, glad to see you were not harmed, close call!
 
babycopperhead.jpg
Does the pattern match this one?
Hard to tell by the pic. This is a juvenile.

Easily confused with the cornsnake.
The juvenile cornsnakes look much more like the Copperhead.
cornsnake.jpg
 
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I crawled right across one going through some rhodo while trout fishing. My buddy nearly stuck his hand on it following me.

I told him since I'm a Christian and he is a lawyer it must have been divine intervention on my end and professional courtesy on his end.

I remember when you posted the picture of that snake.
 
When I was 10-12 my brother and I mowed lawns together. One night we watched a movie and this guy grabs a snake by the tail and whips it so hard it kills the snake (protecting his chickens). I don't remember the name of the movie.

I do however remember us mowing a guys yard the next day and finding a 3 foot Water Moccasin. "Aha" I thought as I grabbed the snake by the tail and whipped it. And it didn't die. Then I whipped it several more times and nothing happened. So then I proceeded to whipping that snake around in a circle like a helicopter, running across the yard. I was afraid if I threw it or let it go it would come back and bite me.

So I yelled at my brother to grab a trash bag and somehow managed to get the snake in the bag. Then we poured gas on it and sealed it up.

Since it was so pristine we decided to put it in a zip lock bag and throw it in the freezer so we could study it. We forgot about it and my mom found it in the bottom of the chest freezer a few years later. I thought she would pass out when I told her the story.
 
This reads like a Patrick McManus short story. You should start writing
I wish!

Thanks, I was hurting last night and couldn't sleep, so I needed something to keep my mind occupied.

I've come to realize that the number of stories a person has like this is directly related to how stupid the person is. Needless to say, I got a million of 'em. That one ain't even the most interesting. I got some doozies.
 
I was at a XBOX yesterday at 62 and Old Julian Rd, opened it up and saw this. I was expecting something and still jumped. He struck at me and missed. Then he crawled into the back of the box.View attachment 6838
Next time you find one of those bring it to the house. You were right there
 
Next time you find one of those bring it to the house. You were right there
I tried to get it but it crawled into the back, I opened it up and couldn't find it. As long as he didn't come back out while I was trying to find my tone and sneak up on me I was content where it was.
PS, a 3/8 socket will open it up if you want it.
 
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View attachment 6822
Does the pattern match this one?
Hard to tell by the pic. This is a juvenile.

Easily confused with the cornsnake.
The juvenile cornsnakes look much more like the Copperhead.
View attachment 6839

I know cornsnakes. Don't know what a canebrake is though. This was a copperhead. A decent size one too. Serious little fangs.

I'll crop the pics and see if that helps...
 
You are one lucky man. Most folks that surprise that guy are bit.
Pretty sure about half of copperhead bites are on or near the hand.
 
You are one lucky man. Most folks that surprise that guy are bit.
Pretty sure about half of copperhead bites are on or near the hand.
It would have had to bite me on the Azz, cause that's all he'd see! I hate snakes!!!!L
 
I was trimming some shrubbery in a yard I used to mow one time. I made a swipe across the top of the bush with the trimmers, came back for the next swipe and one of those about 20" long slid across the top of my left hand. I love snakes, but that scared the poop outta me


what kind of shrubbery?

Knightni.jpg
 
A few years back my dad was on his zero-turn mowing under a young Chestnut tree he'd planted in the yard. As he brushed one of the lower limbs a copperhead dropped out right into his lap. In a pure reflex move he grabbed it and slung it off, then ran over it with the mower. He had to spend a while sitting in the rocker on the front porch before he was ready to finish mowing that day.

A couple summers ago my brother was watering some new shrubs late one night in preparation for leaving for vacation the next morning. Felt a sting on his ankle and looked down to find a young foot-long copperhead at his foot. Snipped it's head off with a pair of lopers and spent the night in the hospital. Walked around the first half of his vacation on crutches.
 
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