Oh, man, I don't even know how many snakes we've had! When the hay gets mowed and baled, rats,mice,snakes....ick, you name it. The river is so close. The weather is warm pretty much year round. And some of the incidents are so crazy, you just can't make this stuff up :D If you didn't read my blog..well, my son was about 12 or 13, and killed a snake, and then decided he wanted to make a belt.(a friend is a taxidermist,so he figures he'll get tips how to do it) So he nails this huge fat snake to a long board, took lots of nails and quite a while to get it done, since he's carefully stretching this snake a little at a time. When my sister comes over later,he's all excited, come see the snake I got, I'm gonna make a BELT...the board was there, but the snake and all the nails were gone. It turns out this hell-a long snake was still alive, and played possum the whole time he's nailing it with dozens of nails. My son just figured, oh,well, I'll get another snake one day. Me, I picture this PinHead HellRaiser snake crawling away, continuing it's snake-ly business. But about snakes in the house...one time, I guess my son was about 21 at the time, I don't remember, but already an electrician. He and my future daughter in law were in his room chatting about what to do for the day when he tells her 'go see my mom'. She got up and asks 'what?' and he says 'there's a snake, go see my mom, and tell her to come here'(cause ya'll know how useful I am in these situations!) Well, turns out he noticed the helium filled mylar balloons she'd gotten him were bobbing about. And it was a snake...ON THE WALL...that kept butting heads with the balloons,making them bounce around like that. He's shut the door by then, but I run down the hall to see what he wants ME for. He says' bring me my sidecutters..whatWHATwhat?...yeah, I squawk like a chicken ..he repeats himself and I go fetch them. And he wants me to put a towel under the door' so it can't get out, Mom...well, all of us, future daughter-in-law,daughter,myself..naturally we stay outside the door where we can hear all this bumping and banging, then swearing "*&^% the *&^%$#@ thing went into the back of my television. MOm, bring me my tool bag.'..ack,omg..so he has to take apart his TV to retrieve this huge snake. We can hear him swearing and then finally he says 'ya'll back up and go to the living room. Mom, open the door." omg..he comes out,with this snake he's grabbed by the neck with a pair of sidecutters(something with a SHORT handle),and it's wrapped around his forearm, with it's head half cut off, but he's holding onto it pretty good with these sidecutters, and he takes it outside, and has to fight to get it uncoiled off his arm, but he gets it off and throws it in the bushes. Then he wants to know "what did you plan? a movie or what?" So calm. So brave. Once my son was here working on his truck when a couple of his friends, brothers, stopped by. They'd just gone canoeing down the river and saw him in the drive, so they stopped to chat. Well, as they stood in the shade talking, up crawls this long green snake. The brother wearing the shirt, reached down and grabbed the snake and held it up to the brother without a shirt. They're all laughing, and the shirted brother is holding this snake out in front of him....when all of a sudden...the snake jumped forward, and latches onto the brother without a shirt, right on his NIPPLE!!! I was out there,too. I couldn't do anything but make little strangling sounds and these guys are all laughing, even the one wearing the snake on his nipple. Finally I start backing up and the guy without a shirt got the snake to let go and he's holding it. All I could think of to say was "you need a tetanus shot"..... We've had LOTS of snakes inside. I have LOTS of snake stories. Heck, I have rat stories,too! It's scary. But anytime you live in the country ,and on the river, this happens. They sell these big huge glue traps for rats and snakes. Just like the little ones you catch mice with. So far,though, the rats are too smart, and maybe too big, for the glue traps. We had this rat we tried and tried to catch, one that would jump from behind the washing machine when I'd go in there at night. Well, my son decided he was going to get it one night, and set out a mechanical trap, and a glue trap, and then set a chair so he could look through the kitchen door at it. He got an air rifle, and fixed himself a drink, and got comfy in that chair. Sure enough, this rat comes from behind the washer, but jumped right on the glue trap. This rat gave us the most horrible hairy eye-ball as it went back down beside the washer with this glue trap stuck to it's butt. But a few seconds later it jumps straight up,looking us in the eye, and reaches down with it's little rat fingers in mid stride, and YANKS that glue trap off of itself.....and gets away. I'm sure it went on to father many many smart little rat-lings, but we never caught it. And it never came back. But that was a GOOD THING, right Martha? ******oh, this is long. I'm going to have to write a book one day :D

Catching a snake is frustrating and time consuming if you are sitting out there waiting for it to come out of it's hole. You can't sit quietly enough to keep it from knowing you are there. They hunt by detecting heat and vibrations. The easiest way is to use the normal behavior of a snake to get it to go where you want. Snakes like warm dark places so you can lay out a paper bag ( a pillow case will be too bright, a burlap sack will do fine) with an opening arranged so the snake can go inside. Wire or a frame of some sort will help keep it open but the object is to create a dark cave. If there is no sun to make the bag warm put a heating pad under it. The snake eventually will go inside, curl up and go to sleep. Then you can scoop up the bag at the open end, twist it a couple of times and tie it off. Twilight is a good time as is noon. Those are times the snake finds a place to nap. Put the snake, bag and all in a garbage can with a snug lid. They can get out of anything that is shorter than a standard garbage can. The advantage to this is you don't have to chase it and it won't be injured and you won't get hurt either. Sandy

Krista, I already had had a lot of encounters with snakes in trees before I saw one up on a tomato cage and also up in a tall tomato plant, so I was sort of prepared for it---though there is no way to describe what was going through my mind when I looked at a tomato plant and saw snakes eyes staring right back at me. There is a Murphy's Law specifically for snakes and guns and it goes like this: If you carry a gun with you, you will not encounter a venomous snake, but if you leave your gun in the house, you certainly will see a snake and wish you had your gun. I've learned to call someone to come shoot it and I know my job is to not take my eyes off that snake and let it get away. (It is embarrassing if a friend comes over to shoot the huge, venomous snake you just saw and you've let the snake get away because you turned your head for only a second.) About 98% of the timber rattlers I've seen are not the black phase ones--they are the standard ones with their background color varying from tan to almost a pale yellow fading to white, and then their marking are black. Around here, folks call them "velvettails" because their rattles have a velvety black outer layer. Usually the ones I see are 3-4' long, but I've seen two that were around 5' long and one that was about 6' long. By the time they have grown to be 5-6', they are very big around and are a horrible sight. It was a black phase one that bit Duke on the bridge of his nose about 6 years ago, and to this day anything tubular and black (a water hose, for example) scares him. He also remembers the exact spot where he was bitten and for several years afterwards would walk around that area, not through it, when we were out walking and got close to that location. Carol, I'm glad that your son's dog made it. I don't know why the snakes are so bad this year, but they surely are all over the place. Kim, I love lizards and toads and we have both in the gardens, but snakes will eat them, so keep that in mind. If you have something around that snakes will eat, sooner or later the snakes will show up looking for it. Amy, That is horrible and there would have been a time when I would have thought that couldn't happen. I know better now. One of the guys who works with my husband was taking a shower one day and one came up through the drain thing in the floor of the shower. He was quick and grabbed his cell phone and took a photo of it. It was so creepy. Bon, Eventually you'll encounter a snake you will wish you hadn't seen. I am stunned at how many we are seeing this year. We see snakes all the time....in the woods, in the pastures, in the roads, etc. and have a fair number of them in the yard and garden. This year, though, we are having tons of them in the yard and garden and even have had one in the garage. This is our 16th year here and the first time we've ever seen one in the garage. Long ago one of my neighbors mentioned to me that once he had one come slithering out of his vehicle's A/C vent while he was driving up the road. To this day, I cannot look at an air conditioning vent in the car without thinking of a snake slithering out of it. I kinda wish he'd never told me that story. We used bird netting with very small squares to try to keep the snakes out of Maddie's little Peter Rabbit Garden, and it worked but not the way we intended. We thought it would keep them from entering the garden. It sort of did, but it wasn't that they reached that mesh and turned away. Oh no, that would be too simple---I think they must not have been able to see the mesh or something and they'd try to squeeze through it and would get stuck and there we would be with either a live or dead snake stuck in the bird netting. It was not a pretty sight. Dawn

I would say, "Yes" as that looks like mealybug. You need to get a handle on this one. Here is a link that might be useful: