After living in Texas for 4 years, I've finally had my first snake in the house encounter. And I wasn't even part of it. Shawn told me about it after the fact because we all know how I am about snakes.
I guess when he got up this morning and let the cats out, the rug by the front door was all wobble jawed. As he was straightening it, he noticed something roughly snake like partially covered by the rug at one end. He just figured it was one of the cat toys and went over to pick it up, that's when he noticed it looked remarkably like a snake and none of the cat toys are snakes. After poking and prodding at it with the edge of the rug, he figured it was dead, but when he went to pick it up by sliding paper under it, it moved. So he corralled it out the front door. That's when he came and told me about it.
Of course, because I'm afraid of snakes, I started quizzing him about what it looked like and whether it was poisonous or not. He made me go to the front door and poke my head out so I could see it. And it was NOT a poisonous snake, but I didn't know what kind it was so we went to the study and started searching for small brown snakes with heads the same width as the body on Herps of Texas. After about 10 minutes of searching, we figure it was a Common Ground Snake.
At about this point is when I decide I ought to take a picture so I go back outside with my camera, but alas, the snake slithered away while we were info searching. As one of my coworkers used to say, "No proof, no snake."
But, now we have to figure out how it got into the house...and there are so many options:
1) It came in through the back door. We had the sliding door open last night and the screen door doesn't shut all the way leaving plenty of room for small critters to get into the house.
2) It came in through the garage door. The actual garage doors aren't exactly sealed perfectly and always allow for small animals to find their way into the garage. But at night, when the cats aren't allowed outside, they are allowed in the garage, and usually the door from the house to the garage is wide open for an hour or so.
3) Quazi had gone outside this morning and had come back in by the time Shawn found the snake, so he could have brought it back in the house with him. This option is unlikely though because he isn't known to carry things around the house like IV is. Plus the rug was wobble jawed before he went outside.
And we're also figuring that Quazi was the one that was playing with the snake and was the one that got the rug all screwwed up--IV tends to meow loudly if she's got some prize, and a live snake would be quite the prize. Plus she is known for carrying items all over the house so she would have picked it up and brought it into the bedroom to show us. Trust me. She's brought us a live cockroach before...while we were still in bed...she put it by my arm...yeah...THAT was fun.
6 comments:
I've seen lots of snakes outside but never in the house and I don't care to thank you very much! I have not seen a ground snake though unless the very small slithering things that I sometimes disturb outside are snakes. I thought they were some kind of legless lizard. How big was your snake?
maybe about 6"-8" long. and a little more than 1/4" in diameter. If you go to the Herps of Texas website, the brown ground snake they have a picture of looks exactly like the one Shawn found.
My parents found a baby rattlesnake or bull snake in their garage a year or so after I moved out. My mom chased it out with a broom.
And then there was the time when I worked at Target and a couple of baby rattlesnakes got in the store and made their home in the dressing room and the shoe area. And we only learned about the snakes because some lady came up to tell us that her kids were playing with a little brown splotchy snake...
We occasionally see one of those brown snakes in the yard but not in the house. This youtube video shows chickens having fun on snake patrol.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
You should consider your self lucky to have had such a great visitor. You know it will help you out with bug problems in the garden. Your husband is a good guy for not killing it as most people would have,,,,well after soiling their selves. It's nice to have a manly man around isn't it?
On another note. Many herpatologists think that all snakes are poisonous to some degree. The Ribbon snakes around my ponds usually catch the Leopard frogs by a leg. They just hang on until the frog gets limp and then eats it. What made the frog get limp? Just something to think about.
Hi Katina.
Snakes I can handle (unless I have to jump over them):
http://east-side-patch.livejournal.com/14539.html
...but a cat that retrieves live cockroaches...Brrrr (shivers, followed by some mouth clacking and some involuntary knee jerking)
Oh no, not me, no thanks :-)
About a month ago, my husband got up before me and went into the kitchen where he found a small brown snake under the table and another was going under the fridge. He called for me to slide the fridge out so he could get to it. I am terrified of snakes, but our four grandkids were asleep and I didn't want to scare them so
I helped him get snake #2. He asked me to hand him the broom so he could sweep while the fridge was pulled out. When I picked up the broom there was a larger brown snake under it! I threw broom and snake at my poor husband, and woke up the grandkids with my scream. My husband was not very happy when I hit him with a snake, but we survived and the snakes were gone! This morning while sitting on the commode, I saw something on the rug between me and the door- I spent the next 10 minutes standing in the bathtub trying to figure how to get out of the restroom! I'm sorry he had to go! Now I'll live in fear for a few more weeks!
Post a Comment