Snakes!

[Bird]

Neil, there aren't any "ponds" in Texas or Oklahoma (that's just something you read about in books - especially poetry), but we've got lots of tanks, and some folks even go so far as to call them stock tanks, since that's where the livestock drinks./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[patrickg]

There are dry granular products for sale at some of our feed stores called "Snake Away" or some such. Supposed to be spread in the area where yo wold like to exclude snakes or drive them away. I have'nt used it so I can't comment on how well it works. If I recall correctly it was 20 something dollars for about a quart or granules. Could probably find it with a search engine looking for snake repellent.

You might not think it funny but I am remembering a Larson cartoon where this guy is swarmed by bugs, his mistake is clear when you read the label on the spray can in his hand. It is "ON".

Patrick

 

[Alan L.]

I love the far-side cartoons. My wife doesn't understand whats so funny - she usually doesn't get it. Too bad he retired.

Sounds like I need to put powdered sulphur, moth balls, and "Snake-away" around and under the porch.

I thought we had used the "tank" enough on here that you cold weather folks knew what it is. To us, a "pond" is a little bitty thing with a rubber liner and gold fish in it.

I guess they call them tanks around here because they are mainly for catching water for the cattle to drink out of.

The snakes I'm seeing are mostly black and brown, and I'm having a hard time identifying them. Most water snakes are NOT water moccasins, but I'm not sure I know the difference for sure.

 

[Bird]

Patrick, I noticed that "Snake Away" in Home Depot recently, but don't anything else about it, except that if I remember right, you would have to re-apply it after every rain. Of course, in my part of the country that would be darned seldom./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[RJohnson]

Bird
Speak for yourself, us northern Texans have had rain every weekend for the last two months. Had to go to South Padre to get away from it/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. I guess I just need to pick up and go south every weekend/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif.

Randy

 

[njrqs]

Randy

Yes if someone was fishing here in a tank it would be unusual indeed.

Cheers

 

[Argee]

I have a pond, compliments of my resident beavers that's about 200 yards square. Its not rubber lined, just full of dead poplar trees. Supports an otter or two also. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif I thought tanks were something cattle drank out of or used in a septic system. I don't think I'd want to fish there!/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

 

[patrickg]

Alan, When I was a kid... OK, when I was a younger kid I used to just love "Mad Magazine" Long live Alfred E. Neuman, what me worry? I read Mad. I would be in my room digesting Mad, reading the marginal notes etc laughing to my self, someone would come to see what was so funny but never thought what I was reading was funny.
Many of Larson's cartoons are almost an IQ test, or at least a HQ (Humor Quotient) test. If you are a Larson fan then odds are you would enjoy reading the satirical SciFi spoof tetrology that began with "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and ended with "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" You will learn many things from this series, Vogon poetry, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, that lab rats are the 3D manifestation of very intelligent hyperdimensional beings who are actually performing experiments on the human experimenters, and on and on.

There is a way to trap snakes that is humane to the snake, a litle hard on the rat or other live bait, but humane to the snake. You put the rat in a cage that has bars or mesh just a little too closely spaced for it to escape and put the cage where the snake can access it. Obviously this presupposes that the snake in question will eat a rat if one is offered. Anyway, the snake eats the rat and has a rat sized lump in its gut which won't pass through the cage wall until considerable digestion takes place. You now have a cage with at least some of the snake in it. This technique was liberally adapted from the technique for catching really large constrictors where an appropriately sized cage and a pig are used.

I'm told that a mongoose makes a decent pet.

Tank is more Texan than Oklahoman. Many Oklahomans say pond to refer to what the Texan often calls a tank. Stock tank is in use to a degree in Oklahoma. Farm pond is a frequently used term. Extension services and the like as I recall with Oklahoma origins publish information on ponds rather than tanks. In rural Mississippi I believe I recall both terms being used but my annecdotal data is decades old.

Patrick

 

[patrickg]

Bird, here is a snake info tidbit I thought I would share. I suppose you are aware of the Hog Nosed snake and its antics. For those not up on their hog nosed snake lore...Hog nosed snakes when encountered, especially if they feel threatened, put on quite a display, holding their head positioned to try to look like a mean tough dangerous snake. They go through some entertaining theatrics, hissing and making false strikes. If that doesn't run you off they may roll over on their back and "play dead." They are so dedicated to their "script" and their method acting that they ham it up just a bit too much as if you turn them right side up they will flop back over belly up to be "dead", again.

A little known but true fact regarding the hog nosed snake. They are, in fact, poisonous. They do not have the "up front" folding hypodermic needle fangs like a rattlesnake, moccasin, cobra or whatever and they don't have poison released in their mouth like a coral snake (no fangs). They do have fangs that will inject venom but they don't fold and they are at the rear of the mouth. They cannot deliver venom with a strike. The venom, in normal use is to paralyze prey as they are ingesting it. I found this stuff out from a good friend who is a PhD zoologist and witnessed a biologist who didn't know better handling a hog nosed snake and stuck his finger into the back of the snake's mouth and got stuck. Not a pleasant experience!

As my aunt the biology teacher used to say, "Even non-poisonous snake bites are a bad thing as they don't brush their teeth and can give you a nasty infection."

Patrick

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>Tank is more Texan than Oklahoman</font color=blue>

I guess nearly everything is changing./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif I was born in Oklahoma and lived there until I was nearly 17 and don't believe I ever heard or saw the word "pond" except in books, but we sure had a tank every place we lived. That was where the horse and cow drank, and where we swam, fished, and shot bullfrogs.

<font color=blue>A little known but true fact regarding the hog nosed snake. They are, in fact, poisonous</font color=blue>

I'd heard that before, but never knew whether it was true. I've caught them, played with them, teased them into striking, playing dead, etc. when I was a kid at Healdton, OK, but haven't even seen one in many, many years.