I found this helpful critter curled up in my garage.
I would welcome a whole nest of snakes in the garage or around the grounds to keep down the number of nice juicy chipmunks hanging about.
Sadly he…she?… picked the wrong place to sleep and had his head crushed under my car’s tire.
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Is this a modern proto-evangelium? Will we see some new recipes? I hear it tastes like chicken. :)
We get rattlesnakes, usually three or four a season. I killed a four footer a couple of weeks ago. I like snakes in general but I could do without those.
If I found that in my garage, I’d be pretty shocked! It looks like it’s still alive! What is the problem with chipmunks, Father? We don’t get them in Ireland, but we do get North American grey squirrels which eat the birdfood and are not helpful to our native red squirrels.
Ooooo-this snake got its head crushed!
Looks nasty-but how will it taste if you cook it? Is it like chicken, as jennywren asked?
We’d like to know!
Poor louse. Had it coming since Gen 3:15.
they will strike at your head while you strike at their…tire?
poor snake
Either a Gopher Snake or one of the various Kingsnakes (Prairie Kingsnake…perhaps a Pine Snake)but hard to tell by the picture. Not sure they would be effective against something the size of a chipmunk … but you’d have a real shortage of mice and other smaller snakes pretty quickly!
Strangely, we also had a dead snake on our driveway this morning…a Florida Brown Snake, about 10 inches long (a baby size!)…probably got nailed by a predatory bird and then dropped judging by the injuries (we have lots of owls, eagles, osprey and falcons around the neighborhood). By the time I found it, it was entirely encased in fire ants. Really grossed out the wife and kids….
Something’s up with my firefox… it won’t load the images you include in your posts… and when I try to go them directly (http://www.wdtprs.com/images/SABINE/09_09_27_snake.jpg) I get a redirect page. :(
Nevermind. I told firefox to block all images from you, and then told it to undo that, and then poof, your snake image appeared. Dunno why it was half-blocking images to begin with, though.
Or perhaps an Eastern Fox Snake…
BTW…if you want to get rid of the chipmunks, get a Falcon. We have a large one (a pair actually) nested in the trees in the marsh behind our house and I haven’t seen so much as a squirrel, bunny, mouse or rat in the past year. Of course, all of your small songbirds would be gone too….
What is the problem with chipmunks, Father?
Chipmunks are ground squirrels. They burrow under concrete work which can lead to dropping and cracking. If one doesn’t have concrete work they are no problem.
…wondering if the “gift” came with a card from The Tablet…
Cats will take care of the chipmunks (but then again, they like birds, so maybe that’s not such a great idea!)…oy!..if I stepped out and saw that creature I’d probably scream “like a school girl” and run faster than I ever had…hate snakes. They can do their job without me seeing them and everyone is happy.
Fr: Hopefully, one of your haters isn’t trying to send you a message. They probably knew you were going to eat today and flew into a rage.
You can use your SUV…. but I prefer a 8 foot garden hoe for this one…then you know your right on target and nothing gets on the paint.
Agnes
You beat me to it!! If a Nun was driving…… :)
Dear Fr. Zuhlsdorf,
Can you identify the beast?
I am not very familiar with the world serpentine.
YOS,
C.
ewww. the very picture makes my skin crawl. if I ever come across a snake a high-pitched scream comes unbidden to my lips immediately.
In my youth, once on our home’s lawn I came across a black snake and I shrieked a powerful piercing scream. We were both surprised. I never knew a surprised snake could stand on its tail. The snake was so shocked I saw the entirety of its pale belly. Once it figured out the source of this dreadful sound, it slunk down and slithered off so fast…
Blacksnakes are effective varmint-hunters. But, I think maybe I am an effective snake deterrent. LOL.
I think the only reptile I’ve ever been able to tolerate were the little geckos skittering on our patio wall in Saigon in the evenings.
He is – was – an eastern fox snake. Poor chap.
Every snake we kill here in Texas ends up in the pig pen. Pigs love to eat snake. I tried a piece of rattlesnake once. It really did taste like chicken.
Just today I found a six foot snake skin near my front porch. Hopefully the snake is not in my house. A few years ago when we repainted we found a snake that had gotten “stuck” to the masking tape we had edged with. He was stuck there for a good year or so. He was a very brittle dead snake.
Lori: That’s where snakes should be: in the pigpen!
Ipsum conteret caput tuum…
Aww… poor thing. He looks like a constrictor (not poisonous) too..
Eww… yuck… shudder….
I hate snakes.
Fr. John Mary-I nearly LOL at the library reading your post!
‘Screaming like a school girl’-yeah, I’d do the same if I encountered one! I hate snakes!
Tina-a snake standing on its tail after you screamed? Gee, too bad YouTube wasn’t around then! Would have been quite the sight!
Or, as Indiana Jones says, ‘Snakes….why did have to be snakes….’
irishgirl: Glad you enjoyed it:<)!
I am humiliated to admit it, but having once had a smake slither over my foot while visiting a cemetery as a child with an ensuing scream that could have roused the dead, any thought of encountering another is…just…too…much! FrJM