Can you hear my screams in Missouri?

I believe I did. I don't think I will ever go out into my garden again.

Isn't that the second one in a couple weeks?

Oh, my, goodness! Did you have your hoe in your hand? I think I would have had a heart attack.

Helen,

Great job!!!!!

We're having a lot of snake trouble here too lately. I'm glad you saw it before it bit you. We aren't having copperheads here this year, just rattlesnakes. (I'd rather have the copperheads since their venom usually isn't as bad.)

Yesterday we brought home our little snakebit cat from the vet clinic.They kept her for 5 days on a IV to try to flush the venom out of her system. She's still partially paralyzed, but is a lot better today than she was yesterday, and she ought to make a full recovery. Ever since she got bit, I've been extra careful to wear heavy leather boots outside and I have been carrying a gun with me everywhere I go.

I've also been trying to persuade the cats and dogs to spend more time indoors.The less time they are outside, the lower the chance of them being snakebit.

I spent a long time harvesting lots of veggies the last couple of days, and I was so jumpy it was ridiculous. Once I've run into snakes in the garden a few times, I start making up excuses to not step foot in it.

Dawn

It is very fat for its length. I wonder if it is full of babies.

I planted too many tomatoes and didn't get cages around them all. I was reaching for a tomato when I saw the snake. It was curled in a tight coil directly under the spray of about three tomatoes. I don't think I would even have looked that close if all my tomatoes hadn't split from the inch of rain I got Monday. I was in a hurry and was only picking good tomatoes since I was going to town and wanted to give some away.

I don't know how I am going to pick the rest of my tomatoes. The other copperhead was discovered near dusk and stretched out. I spotted it from several feet away. This one was about six inches from my hand.

Helen, That is too close. I've had close calls like that before and they scared me to death. When I've had that sort of a close call, it is hard for me to go back into that area again because I am so afraid another snake will be there.

I did notice that it was pretty wide and wondered if it either was about to give birth, or if it had had a really good day and found something good-sized to eat. You know, it is that time of the year. I think the copperheads here usually reproduce in August.

I don't really have any suggestion about how to pick tomatoes in an area where you already have found snakes. Sometimes with beans or southern peas, I carry a 3 or 4' long metal green fence post with me (I use them to stake tomato cages) and stick it into the area where I am about to pick beans or southern peas. I move the foliage around a bit and look carefully at the ground and at the plants themselves trying to make sure there's not a snake in there. It is easy to do that with legume plants that are more lightweight and move around pretty easier. It would be harder with tomato plants that are sprawling on the ground as they are heavier and cannot be shifted around easily with a stick or pole.

I've always felt pretty safe in the garden early in the day, assuming that the snakes already are out of the garden by daybreak. The encounter with a timber rattler that was headed into my garden, not out of it, a little after 9 a.m. one day a couple of weeks ago made me stop and think twice about that. Even though they tend to be nocturnal, I've had them in the garden more than I'd like during the daylight hours.

Copperheads are not as aggressive as some other venomous snakes, or at least at our house they aren't. Even the timber rattlers would rather warn you to go away than to waste their venom on you. Chris stepped on a copperhead one night when he was getting out of his car when he was in college. It didn't even bite him, for which we were grateful, but as he pulled his leg back into the car and closed the door, it slithered under his car and headed straight for us and a bunch of our friends. We were sitting there in lawn chairs, so Tim had no choice but to shoot it because it was coming right towards us. Another time, back not too long after we moved here, Chris and I stepped right into a bunch of copperheads. It was a mother and a bunch of babies and they were moving across the pasture towards the pond in broad daylight and we stepped right into the middle of them in tall grass, saw them and then jumped and ran away. It is hard to believe that the adult at least didn't strike us. Ever since that happened, we always mow 6-8' wide paths through our pastures and only walk in the mowed pathways. At least that way we have a good chance of seeing the snakes before we step on them.

Please be careful! You've had too many close calls lately.

Dawn

I think I'll mow the lawn today. Yeppuh

Bon, Mowing the lawn is when I most often see snakes, especially in hot weather. The copperheads here like to lay on the edge of the woodland right where the grass meets the trees and I'll be mowing and will see them just laying there.

Something is wrong with our snakes this year. Every snake we have seen on our property, except for 2 rat snakes I've seen and one racer that Tim saw, has been a venomous snake. Usually we have at least as many non-venomous snakes as venomous ones. I don't know why the numbers are messed up this year.

Our little tabby cat who was bitten last week came home from the vet this week with part of her face still paralyzed and, while she'd drink water, she wouldn't eat. She has begun eating again, and the paralysis in her face is improving. Her forehead seemed overly taut and sort of "frozen" in place (like a Hollywood actress who's had too much Botox to the forehead) and she couldn't close her eyes, particularly her right eye. Now she can close her left eye and can kinda halfway close her right eye. I am relieved that she is getting better.

I never forget a place where I see a snake and our cats who have been bitten are the same way. Slim Shady was bitten by a copperhead about 8 years ago and he still thinks anything (like a water hose for example) that resembles a snake is a snake and he runs from it. If you are dragging a waterhose across the yard, the other cats will follow you and play with the hose, playfully attacking it. Slim Shady? He runs for the porch to get away from it. Our dog, Duke, was bitten by a timber rattler in the driveway down by the road in about 2006 and for about 3 years after that when you took him for a walk he would want to drag you off the driveway and into the adjacent field so he could avoid walking close to the part of the driveway where he was bitten. Our vet still is amazed that Duke survived that snakebite.

About half our pets that have been bitten by snakes have survived, which obviously mean that half did not. One has been bitten twice. I guess she was a slow learner.

Dawn