kthirtya wrote:
Good grief! Your wife and daughters are tougher
than I.
If I saw a snake like those I'd probably call it, "EEEEEEK!!!"

hahahaha - true story follows

Texas A&M (where I went to school and now work) has this annual project the
students do every March called "The Big Event". Basically it involves the
students - close to 5,000 of them, doing volunteer projects for folks who
live in the community. It usually involves things like painting,
landscaping, clearing brush, etc.

2 years ago, just as we were preparing to begin building our dream house,
we had a group of them come out and clear the underbrush from a wooded area
near the house. The Big Event organizers sent us an entire unit from a
company of the Corps of Cadets. For those of you who are not familiar with
Texas A&M, the Corps of Cadets is our version of ROTC - but here, the
Corps are more than just a small group... Texas A&M puts more kids into the
military every year than all universities except for the Naval and Army
academies.

I mention this so you get a picture of the guys that showed up at our house
that morning - 20 young men, all in great physical shape, all with military
discipline.

Naturally this meant my 3 teen-aged daughters had to stick around to "help"
:-) Actually, they were alot of help - being country girls, they aren't
shy about getting dirty and doing the hard stuff - but I digress...


Now for a description of the area we were going to clear out - this is
basically a creek bottom that hadn't been touched in ~30 years. Lots of
LARGE oak trees with an almost impenetrable thicket of stickers, Yaupon
trees, and poison ivy. Basically the job was to leave all the large trees
and clear out everything else.

3 hours later, this group of kids had an area cleared ~40 yards wide x 80
yards long. They were armed only with axes and clippers. Impressive. We
were almost done when one of the bigger of these military-sized boys drops
his ax and BOLTS out of the woods. Just as he hits the open pasture, I
hear him yelling "SNAAAAAKE".

At this, my middle daughter (16 at the time) runs TO where this kid had
just vacated and starts moving the brush out of the way saying "where?
Where?" Eventually a long, slender, all black snake bolts and heads to one
of the bigger oak trees. This tree happens to have a large hollow at the
bottom where a hive of honey bees have taken up residence (the bees didn't
seem to mind the snake one bit). Being in a "safe place", the snake now
relaxed and allowed us to get a really good look.

Some of the corps guys who didn't run off: "what kind is it? Is it a
cotton mouth?"

Me: "No, it's way to skinny to be a cotton mouth"
...looking closer...
"I'm not sure what kind it is, but it's not poisonous - the head is not
angular and the eyes are round, not slitted".

Daughter #2: "Ah man."

Corps guy who ran off: "SHE'S UPSET THAT IT'S *NOT* POISONOUS???!!!"


We later identified the snake as an Eastern Coachwhip.


The next fall we found 2 copperheads on the property (the only poisonous
ones we've found). Amy (dd#2) was upset that I wouldn't let her keep
either for a pet. What can I say - she's her father's daughter! *VBG*

--

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Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes
(also MSN IM) Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes