Semi, Fake anything, whether it is owls or snakes or whatever, only works for a couple of days before the birds figure out that the fake animals don't move and aren't a threat to them. I have two terrific scarecrows that a very dear friend of ours made for my garden (a most wonderful and unexpected gift), but many songbirds sit on the scarecrows and use them as a perch. However, the hawks (who are quite a problem and often try to get our chickens and guineas) seem to think the scarecrows are real, so they are effective in that regard. With strawberries, the first thing to understand is that every critter in your neighborhood that is an omnivore or herbivore will try to eat them, and this includes not only the birds, but mice, rabbits, voles, insects, turtles, etc. So, netting is perhaps your best bet. It needs to be raised up a little so it does not lie directly on the plants and fruit, or the birds will sit on the netting and peck at the fruit through the holes in the mesh. It also needs to be secured at the ground level to keep out small animals. You also could use a Remay-type floating row cover. I don't know if any place in Ardmore sells them, but think TSC or Orschlein's or Bluebonnet Feed might be the best place to look. (I haven't seen them at Lowe's.) These row covers are very lightweight and keep everything off the plants except for insects that can navigate their way up through the soil, like sowbugs and pillbugs. If you can't find floating row covers, the "sheer" curtains sold in stores are a reasonable substitute. Things that move tend to scare off birds more than things that are stable. There is a commercial product called bird flash tape that is iridescent and supposedly scares off birds as it blows in the wind. I haven't tried it, but have used surveyor's tape (you can get a roll for just a couple of bucks at Lowe's) for the same purpose. Strawberries are one of those crops that gardeners love to grow (especially new gardeners). However, they are VERY labor-intensive and are very hard to grow organically because keeping them "safe" from both pests and diseases requires a LOT of chemicals (esp. commercially). Some people have a lot of success with them. Others don't. I think Plantermunn is quite accomplished at growing strawberries, so perhaps he'll see this post and give you some tips. You also can go to the Noble Foundation website and read about their work with strawberry plasticulture. If I ever were to grow strawberries again, that's the route I would go because it seems very efficient and probably has a high rate of success. I don't grow strawberries myself because I think they require too much work/cost in return for the amount of berries you harvest from a small patch. (I did grow them in Texas, but I had a smaller garden and landscape to maintain.) But, that's just me. I have a huge garden area to maintain, so I can't give high-maintenance plants like strawberries the attention they really need. Good luck, Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Bird Scare Flash Tape

Larry, I thought of you this morning when I went outside early and there were 4 or 5 bunnies hopping around the yard. Once the bunnies see our rabbit-hunting cat, Tiny Baby (no longer Tiny and no longer a Baby either) with me, they run off. He'll catch a rabbit and carry it around and play with it, but he won't kill it, so I usually can grab him and set a rabbit free if he is just carrying it in his mouth. It hasn't been too bad of a snake year this year so far. I think all our copperheads are someplace else this year because I've barely seen any at all, but we have lots of garter snakes. Tim sees them more than I do. I think he sees them mostly when he is out jogging or when he's mowing. I see them in the yard and in the garden when I see them. Today a timber rattler could have bitten me if it had wanted. I had just closed the garden gate around 10:20 a.m. and was going to pick up an item off the ground before heading inside. I heard a rattle and froze in my tracks. I quickly located the snake and backed away a safe distance. (Now, yesterday a little voice in my head told me to carry a gun when I went outside, so I did. Today there was no voice in my head, so I didn't carry my gun out there....). If there is one thing I've learned about snakes it is that after you see them, if you leave them to go inside and get a gun, they will not be sitting there waiting for you to come back out and shoot them. I did have my cell phone with me, and Tim was at home, so I called him. I called him 6 times and sent him 3 text messages. No response. I knew if I left to come inside the snake would disappear into the garden, so I waited and watched the snake. I knew Tim had to leave the house within 20 or 30 minutes to go to work, so figured eventually he'd either check his phone or come outside to leave for work. Finally I heard a banging sound in the garage and started yelling his name. Eventually he came down the driveway to see what was wrong. He got a gun and killed the rattlesnake. I was shaking. That probably is the closest I've come to being bitten in a good 10 years. It was less than a foot from me when it rattled and I froze, located it and backed away. It was coiled up against the garden fence and just drew its head back and rattled, and that saved me. It just as easily could have bitten me. After it all was over and Tim had disposed of the snake, he told me how lucky I was that it was a timber rattler (they are rather shy and non-aggressive) and not a western diamondback rattler, because a more aggressive rattlesnake likely would have bitten me. Timber rattlers are supposed to be somewhat endangered, but we have them all over the place here and I normally see several a year, but not all close up and personal like this one was. The venom can be pretty toxic. He also promised me he'd carry his phone with him at all times now whether he is in the house or going in and out from the garage to the house or whatever. I thought we had settled that issue back in the year of the cougar sightings, but so many years have passed now and he's gotten bad about leaving his phone lying around in the house. Often it is upstairs and he is downstairs. I generally keep my phone with me all the time, having learned an important lesson about that when one of our neighbors fell and broke her hip on their seldom-traveled private road and laid out there, helpless, by the mailbox for several hours until someone arrived home and found her. I hate snakes, and I've learned that if I am not carrying a gun, I'd sure better have the phone with me or the venomous snake will get away. They can roam all they want on at least 11 of our 14+ acres, but if they are in the garden, driveway, garage, potting shed, chicken coops or yard, we shoot them. Dorothy, We had a rough green tree snake that used to hang out in the garden and eat stuff. For some reason, seeing the green ones doesn't freak me out as much as seeing other snakes, so I tolerated his or her presence. Its' favorite place was the top of the shade cloth over the peppers, putting it at just about my eye level. I didn't see it last year or this year, so guess something happened to it and it no longer is here. Lots of the ranchers here like having a rat snake in their barns to keep the rodents down, but if I knew we had a snake in a building, I'd never step foot in that buildlng. In an average year, I'll have one or two scary rattlesnake encounters, so I guess that for 2013 this is one down, one to go. Dawn

I remember when we were younger in Texas. We watched a big ole turtle walkin down the road towards Zeboes park. We walked along side it till it got to the main road then my twin sister and I each grabbed a side of the turtle's shell and picked it up. It just relaxed and enjoyed the ride. We heard a hissing when we first went to pick it up but after that it didn't make any noises at all. It was relaxed and non agressive at all. I suppose that is when I first fell in love with turtles. I have encountered a few agressive turtles but not many. I am very cautious of COOTERS tho. I am curious if that is a nickname for a certain type of turtle that is indigenous to South Carolina or if it is a real type of turtle? I guess I will just google it. I am not at all fond of water birds. Our experiences with water fowl has been more problematic than anything else. I have had ducks and geese chase and attack our daughters when they were toddlers. They would chase my daughters and take their bottles and any food they may have had in their hands or mouths. They have attacked my chihuahuas and my cats. I have seen small birds dive bomb my cats. Tho I must admit, it is quite comical to watch. Those little birds do damage to my four legged friends. I can't stand the bird droppings all over everything. Turtles are good. I could not imagine eating anything soooooooooo cute.

Great story Jem! My dad was a rice farmer for many years and he really encountered a lot of snakes out in the fields especially during the times when they had to flood the rice fields. He also had the pump station that would pump the water from the bayou near by into his fields. The screen down in the water inlet would get stopped up and he would have to dive down in the muddy water and reach down in there and pull out what ever was blocking the inlet screen. He never knew what he would be grabbing! Could be a water moccasin or cotton mouth, a snapping turtle, a big fish or just a wad of water lilies. Thank goodness he never once was bitten doing that. He had several venomous snakes bite and stick into his big heavy boots. Walking around in the fields in water was a dangerous job. He would come home often with something in his shirt pocket for me. A little turtle quite often. I had an aquarium with a collection of the little turtles he would bring to me. I would keep them for a while and then return them to the fields when they were a little bigger. The life of a farmer is a very difficult life in so many way!