Facing your fears

I wrote about a little adventure I had with a bullsnake the other day and received several comments from squeamish serpent-haters. Let me say for the record that I’m with you. I feel your fear. I hate snakes, too, and they scare the bejeezus out of me (whatever bejeezus is - I really have no idea). But with each snake encounter, my screams get a little less loud, my jumps a little less high, and my nerves a little less rattled, or rattler-ed as it were.

The more you face your fears, the less fearful you will be, right? So come with me for a few close encounters of the serpent kind. By the time you get to the end of this post, I guarantee one of the following:
1) you will be less fearful of snakes
2) you will be more fearful of snakes


See the diamondback rattlesnake? He is dead - got run over by a truck. See the boot? Size 8. Mine. No, I did not jump right out of it when I saw the snake. I just wanted to give y’all a sense of scale, so I hopped around on one foot to take this picture.


This is a bullsnake I met behind the barn last summer. I was able to leave my boots on this time, seeing as how the poop pile was there to give you a sense of scale.

This is Smooch, oblivious to the snake next to the poop pile.

This is the same bullsnake close up. Check out that forked tongue! 

Here’s another bullsnake. I found this guy all snarled up in the netting that I used to keep the rabbits out of the garden last summer. He couldn’t wriggle himself free, and he was hissing and showing his teeth and carrying on something awful. I couldn’t just leave him there. It was my fault that he was stuck.

I devised a plan to unsnarl him. I had a valve turn-off thingy in the garage. I would trap his head with the tool in one hand and use a blade in the other hand to cut away the netting. I thought of all the good snake karma I would add to my account if I could free him. I also thought about all that bad snake karma if I left him to suffer. But before I did anything, I took pictures. If I did get bit, at least I’d be able to show the ER docs what got me.

I cowgirled up and started to cut away the netting. He stopped hissing. My hands were shaking. I tried to channel Cesar Millan. Sure, he's a dog whisperer, not a snake whisperer, but I'm a believer in the whole energy thing. If I was calm and assertive, the snake would be calm and submissive. Yeah, right.


After hacking away the netting for what seemed like an eternity, the snake was free. He slithered into the grass and coiled up, opened his jaws, and hissed louder than ever. The ungrateful serpent....I saved his life and he still wanted to bite me! But I was pretty proud of myself. Cha-ching cha-ching. And up went my good snake karma account.