Creating a Lake

[Spiveyman]

The snakes don't bother me that much. While cleaning out back by our pond I saw a few garter snakes, I think they are pretty cool actually, but haven't come across the really scary ones. What makes me scream like a girl are spiders. I was opening a gate the other night, the metal was tubular, so in the corners they make a concave surface so that they can bend the tube. I grabbed the gate and my fingers went right up into that concave section and I felt a biggest freaking hairy spider I've ever seen, brown ugly sucker. Gave me a full body shiver! I got my gloves off the tractor, put them on and squished that thing all over the place! I never took my gloves off the rest of the day! I started to get a picture of it to see if it was a brown recluse, but didn't want to take the time. I wanted that thing dead!!!

 

[patrick_g]

I have a good friend who has PhD in biology. His specialty is entomology (BUGS) He has handled a lot of different BUGS and knows his BUGS quite well. HE was standing on a chair fussing with a curtain rod in his den and noticed a brown recluse coming along the rod toward him. He launched himself backwards off the chair out into the room without looking to see where he would hit or what he might fall on. He has a healthy respect for the power of their venom.

I have another friend who got bit by a brown recluse several months ago up in Kansas in his basement and was very lucky to not lose much flesh from it. He has renewed his interest in the chemical I had told him to spray with. Cypermethrin!!! (Close relative to Permethrin) It kills spiders and scorpions and roaches and ... on and on. It is virtually odorless and is water based (I buy a wetable dry powder) and pet and kid safe after it dries. OK indoors or out. Lasts for months out of the rain. In nearly 4 months it has killled nearly a dozen scorpions in our sun room and maybe 6 or 8 in the house proper. I don't try to ID the dead spiders. The trace of the Cypermethrin I sprayed around the base boards killed a bunch of spiders and my wife vacuums them up so I don't know what all they were (except DEAD.) Last few weeks I have seen a couple of the grand daddy long legs sort of spider so I may be overdue for a retreat. When the professionals use this stuff they do it every three months and I have been four+.

Pat

 

[EddieWalker]

Funny thing about you guys bringing up snakes.

Friday night, I was laying out my air hose, to do some work Saturday morning, and noticed this guy on my side porch. It was just about dark out, but luckily I spoted him far enough away not to sceam too loudly!!

We're pretty sure it's a cotton mouth, but then, every black snake with a white mouth is a cotton mouth to me.

Anybody know for sure?

Eddie

 

[wdscot]

Eddie, it is nice to see someone so intent on a project of this magnitude. You will be successful in the end. Good Luck, Wayne

 

[Spiveyman]

Pat, thanks for the spider chemical, that WILL be on my next shopping list.

Eddie, Can I assume snake picture #3 is the same feller as in #1 & #2? Right on man! What'd you kill it with?

 

[patrick_g]

Anybody know for sure?

Eddie

Eddie, It looks sort of cottonmouthish but the shadow in the mouth makes it tough to tell. You were in a perfect position to find out.

With its mouth open use a screw driver or whatever to prop a fang out into the open. If no fangs, it was a harmless rat eater.

Here is what the fangs look like on the real thing.

I'm not saying your's wasn't the real deal, just can't tell from the pix.

We have them here too as well as copperheads and rattlers. Our snake books say we have rattlers but in 6+ years I haven't seen one. I have shot two snakes in all this time. One a suspected cottonmouth swimming toward my wife in a pond when I just happened to be target practicing with a pistol when I heard the scream. A guy helping me repair a fence said look, a copperhead! Well when working in snake territory I change out my magazine with hollow points for one with shot shells in my baby Glock .45ACP. I blew it away before inspecting it and there wasn't much head left afterward as it was quite close.

I know I have poisonous snakes on the place but I don't go looking for them. My policy is live and let live UNLESS the snake and I are close enough to allow me to kill it without having to chase it down. I am pretty good at snake ID and mostly I encounter non-poisonous ones, except as noted above.

Pat

 

[patrick_g]

Pat, thanks for the spider chemical, that WILL be on my next shopping list.

The brand name of mine was Demon but there are way cheaper brands it turns out that are essentially exactly the same! A GOOGLE will turn up internet sellers.

Pat

 

[3RRL]

Eddie,
Can't tell for sure from your pictures, but my money says it is (was) a rat snake of some sort. I try not to kill the harmless snakes but it is a different story with the diamondback rattlers out here. Nevertheless, we share the same feelings for snakes I see.

 

[bindian]

Funny thing about you guys bringing up snakes.

Friday night, I was laying out my air hose, to do some work Saturday morning, and noticed this guy on my side porch. It was just about dark out, but luckily I spoted him far enough away not to sceam too loudly!!

We're pretty sure it's a cotton mouth, but then, every black snake with a white mouth is a cotton mouth to me.

Anybody know for sure?

Eddie

Eddie,
From the photos of your snake live, I would say he was a King Snake. At least that is what we have always called them. They might have another more correct name. They eat other snakes. They are scary, but harmless. The reason I go with King Snake, is that he is a large black snake away from water and not showing you his mouth in warning like a Cotton Mouth will. A Kind Snake is usually larger than the snakes he eats. Saw one once eating a Copperhead. That was a site I have also seen a chicken snake that large with about 7 of my baby rabbits in its belly. He got stuck going out of the cage. Since I was little at the time, I always get goose bumps going into rabbit hutches now. But better safe than sorry. My first instinct is to kill any snake I see.
hugs, Brandi

 

[have_blue]

We're pretty sure it's a cotton mouth, but then, every black snake with a white mouth is a cotton mouth to me.

Anybody know for sure?

Eddie

Eddie,

It's a black rat snake. You can tell by the multiple little waves in the tail that it is non-poisonous. No venomous snake in the USA is that flexible or thin bodied. I sure wish I had some of those in my tractor shed. The mice are partying in there, and chewing up everything.