Connie, If you are willing to stand there and chop up a snake with a hoe, you're braver than me! I had neighbors in Texas that used to do that when I was a kid, and these were ladies who screamed if they saw a spider! And, as far as the hoe being pricey, I have found that buying good-quality equipment pays off in the long run as it lasts far longer. Nowadays I buy all my rakes, hoes, shovels, etc. at Sears and get the Craftsman brand, because they come with a lifetime guarantee and Sears really does replace them if they break. I do the same thing with water hoses. Those big black heavy-duty water hoses from Sears have a lifetime guarantee, and Sears replaced one last year after my husband ran over it with the lawn tractor. :) And, Steffie, I ALWAYS watch my feet when I am working around the place. I've become more cautious over the years after almost stepping on rattlesnakes in the garden numerous times. During snake season, it never fails.....I'll be walking across a paved parking lot at someplace like a mall or a Wal-Mart and my husband will notice I'm watching my feet as I walk, you know, watching for snakes! It is a hard habit to break once established. I have rubber boots but I want some of the snakeproof boots and snakeproof pants I've seen at Cabella's. I have a neighbor who's lived here all his life and he wears snake chaps on his legs when he's working in brush or tall grass. Still, you know, all of us are more likely to be bitten on the hand or arm while gardening, statistically speaking. One of the reasons I mulch everything so heavily is that it cuts down on weeding and, presumably, on my chance of being bitten while weeding. I hate reaching into a shady mixed border of small trees, shrubs and ground covers in the summer months because you never know what will be in there! Alan, I can't believe you were trying to pick a fight with a water moc! We have lots of them in our four ponds and they are very aggressive, as you know. We leave them alone in the three big ponds, but if they get in the lily pond that sits between the house and the barn, we remove them. (In a nice way if possible, like with a rake or by firing a gun at them and not hitting them.) If they won't leave in a nice way, my DH shoots them. We walk by the pond dozens of times a day and all our animals like to hang out around it, so we can't put up with snakes that close to us and the house. To be fair to the snakes, most of the copperheads and rattlesnakes just want to get away from us as badly as we want to get away from them. One night my son, who was about 18 or 19 at the time, stepped out of his car after dark and stepped right on a copperhead. It startled him, but it didn't bite him. The cottonmouths are a whole different story, though, and we all steer clear of them. We got 3.5" of rain here and had some minor street flooding. Even my raised beds have been pretty wet, but might be dry enough in a day or two for me to work in them. They drain fairly fast. Dawn

Wow that is a nasty bite. I was thinking about this (people not realizing they were bitten) and there are some people who have neuropathy (nerve damage) from diabetes or other diseases that might not realize they were bitten if a lot of venom wasn't injected for whatever reason. They might not feel the initial pain of the bite but the effects of the venom as they became ill. I got bit by a brown recluse spider one time and didn't know I was bit until the ulcer showed up. I don't have any reason for getting an ulcer on my leg and I was young and healthy. Then I remembered seeing the recluse spider when I was moving some boxes in our basement. Luckily it healed okay. It is common not to feel recluse bites though. Some people are allergic or get infections from them though and that's when the trouble starts. ~sjn

Ok - Here is how I recieved my first snake bit (for those curious) I knew it was going to happen (even before I stuck my hand in the aquarium). A friend of mine ran a apartment complex in Georgia. He had found a Red Tail Boa in a apartment that had escaped, and the owner had been evicted. He took it home, put it in a 10 gallon aquarium, the snake was a good 5' or more. He had crammed the tank full of towels, and put in a hot rock, and had a 150W light bulb shining in the poor snakes face 24 hours a day (for warmth he said) He added a coffee cup of water for the snake to drink out of - and of course - the snake had tipped it over. David, while his intentions were good - he was afraid of the snake. He had not fed it, and it was "not happy" I knew that I was going to get nailed before I even put my hand in the tank to remove the wet towels, and clean up the water. The snake did exactly what I expected him to do. He struck me, and wrapped my arm very quickly. I stood there (my daughter watching) with a snake stuck to my arm. I gently pryed his mouth from my arm - and after cleaning the cage, returned him to it. I made sure not to even cringe - as I did not want my daughter to develop a fear of snakes! I never made a sound, and I think my calmness helped both me, the snake, and my daughter. I told Richard and his elderly mother that the snake needed to be with someone familiar with handeling snakes (I had grown up with boa's because my brother had one when I was a little girl) They sold me the snake, I put it on a plane to Texas, took it to my brother - who then placed it with a person who handles boa's and takes them to schools as a part of a teaching program. I have a fondness of snakes, and would hate to kill it unless it poses a danger to our lives. My snake bite was expected, thankfully I do not meet any of the "reasons that people get snake bitten" - but thanks for posting - because I think you are exactly correct. Most (but not all) snake bites are due to stupidity - many of the others are probably just due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We almost stepped on that poor snake in my images before we noticed it. Its only defense would have been to strike - this would have just been - being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thank goodness for all of us - our situation ended up ok. I will just have to keep a closer eye out before I go treading through my garden. RT

"All other snake encounters I've had, all I had to do was step back a few feet and wait and the snake would wander off to the brush." This is a great strategy for snake encounters. With cottonmouths (and also copperheads to some degree) I find that they will often continue to stand their ground until they think you have left the area. This is easily solved by simply continuing to back away (paying some attention to see that there aren't other snakes around as you are backing). Most species I move off roads..I can just chase off the road, but with cottonmouths I will gently tap them on the tail with a stick and then back away. They leave once they think I am gone but they usually won't flee until they think the threat is gone. "A female cotton mouth protecting her nest will go after any animal that comes near it... including humans. If you've ever accidentally dropped anchor over one or walked by one on the sand near it, you'd experience it first hand." Cottonmouths give live birth to a litter of anywhere from 1 to 16 young in August, September or sometimes early October (the average litter is 6 to 7). They typically give birth in upland areas and do not have nests in the sense that birds or some mammals do. "Out of all the snakes in Texas, the moccasin is the only one I turn tail and run when I see it." Moving away from the snake is, indeed, a good idea. The most common recommended advice is to back away slowly rather than sprint away. The primary reason is that you can pay better attention to your surroundings if you are moving slowly. Once you've seen a venomous snake and are more than 1/2 its body length away..the snakes you don't see are a bigger danger than the one you can see. Since cottonmouths are locally abundant in places, running away quickly can lead to running so fast that you step on another cottonmouth 15 feet away (this probably matters more in a wilderness area than in a yard where chances are the one you see is the only one around). I don't know of any cases of this happening with cottonmouths, but I do know of an unfortunate case where someone saw a rattlesnake a good distance away and freaked out and took off running so fast that they ran smack dab full steam onto a different rattlesnake that reacted instantly to being trampled on and tagged them. Of course the odds of this are still pretty low, so there probably isn't really much practical difference between turning tail and running and backing away.