that snake repellant at Lowe's is nothing but moth ball type stuff and Carla has animals and does not need that in her garden where it can be toxic to them. I don't know why they sell that. I bought it thinking it was some magical formula when I had that copperhead come in my house. When I realized what it was, I knew I could not use it because of the kitties.

we love them. haven't found any coppers, and would be cautious if we did, but most other snakes get handled if i have gloves on. i've rescued 2 snakes out of our pond netting- one this spring, who reall yhad itself tangled good. it was so calm and let me ease it and cut it loose. 'course, i don't know how smart it was, b/c it got itself tangled back up pretty quick, while i was still easing out the backside. i escorted him to the backyard, since he was a hognosed snake, and had been after our frogs. i will run off big water snakes, b/c i don't want them after our fish, but i don't kill them. we back up to lake easement(read swamp), so we get a good many various snakes over a yr's time. trying to convince our neighbors to call me next time he finds a big one instead of chopping its head off. we celebrate when we find worm snakes- means our soil's doing great! we even kept 2 rough green snakes in our terrarium with the anoles & skinks for a summer. they were the biggest pigs! they were like moving sculptures, though- very entertaining. the thing i found most fascinating, is being solitary creatures, you wouldn't think they'd enjoy each other's company, but the opposte was true. they stayed close to each other and slept all balled into a green mass. they'd fattened up so we let them go in fall knowing they were in good shape for winter. they stayed in the tree i put them in for more than a day- no doubt hoping i'd offer some tasty crickets. the llizards were nervous of them when we first introduced them, but within a couple days they ignored them. we realeased everything last year- got to be too much trouble. it was fun and taught us a lot, though. tam

As suggested by another poster, I think the lack of sightings is more due to the shy nature of the coral snake then the scarcity of them. I have seen three of them on my property since I moved here in 1988. All of the snakes were under something I was moving. The most recent encounter was in April of this year when I was leveling an area in a shrub bed that I was preparing to pour some concrete to serve as a slab base foundation for the battery bank for my solar power system. I was hitting some of the old plastic weed barrier which was covered with river rock. My rake hooked the plastic and peeled up a bit of it and a small coral popped out of there. He really was small an beautiful. In my moment of ponder about what to do with this deadly little creature, it was all the time the little fellow needed to slither into a very thick arborvitae. I just hope my dogs never run into it. The chocolate lab in particular is a perpetual puppy even though she's three and a half!

Angie, Alexandra started working at the Louisiana Nature Center ( part of Audubon Institute ), when she was in sixth grade, one of the reasons she decided to quit Girl Scouting was she was promoted to Animal Care and didn't have the time for both activities. When we left LA for Katrina she had been working Saturdays caring for and handling many of the animals there including baby alligators. Unfortunately, she went over to River Legacy and they don't seem to have any interest in her. She has pretty much known what she wanted to do since she was around 8 or 9. I have two other daughters 15 and 11, neither is interested in nature. 15 y.o. loves acting/drama and the 11 y.o. is into all sorts of stuff, she will go swimming, do yard work, paint play softball pretty much anything active, she likes to help me build things. Both of them were also in Girl Scouts, but neither one wants to anymore. I was hoping they would so I could get involved, but I don't have enough free time to be involved in something unless at least one of my girls is in it. I do miss camping and canoing. I did the training for Brownie, Junior and Cadette leaders, First Aid, OLS 1, OLS 2 and OLS 3 Canoing/Rivertripping. We had active troops, the Brownies went weekend camping. Anyhow, good luck with Girl Scouts- I guess that is why I am here- "make new friends but keep the old"