Yesterday, my dog Piper was incessantly barking in the back yard. She’s a pretty vocal dog, but this was a different kind of bark, so Libby went out to investigate. There, coiled on the ground, was a snake. The snake was trying to stare Piper down, but when your head is the size of a large thumb, you aren’t as effective as a lab/rottie mix. Libby decided that the dog needed to be inside the house and that she needed to alert somebody else to the presence of the snake.
Up walks Frank from the mailbox, oblivious to the fact that he has walked within a foot of this snake. When Libby asked if he had seen it, he seemed dumbfounded that he’d missed it! Being of the male persuasion his first instinct was to get a stick and poke at it. (Um… for those of you who don’t realize that I live in Maryland, we have poisonous snakes called Copperheads here!) The snake, who was trying to stare down the dog previously, decided that a 6’5″ man with a stick was too much for it, so it slithered up into a line of trees between my house and the neighbors. So, what is the next logical step for snake eradication?? CALL IN THE MARINES!!!
Our neighbors are both in the military. (Granted they both play in military bands, so their weapon of choice is a woodwind or a brass instrument, but they are still military!) They also have two small children and this was the second time we had heard tell of a snake in the area. We didn’t want them to look over and see their little daughter nose to nose with a snake!! So the two men decided it was time to go Snake Fishing…
What exactly do you need to go snake fishing? I guess a pair of gloves, a pillowcase and a very long pole. (Thankfully, we had recently gotten one of those to wash the house with!)
The guys poked the pole through the bushes and tried to loop the snake to pull it out. Over and over again, the snake slid off the pole and quickly moved back into the cover of the trees.
Finally, the Marine was able to catch the tail end of the snake and pull him out of the trees; note that this is no small snake! While Frank pinned the head with the scrubbing end of his pole, the Marine went in to capture the enemy…
And here is the trophy shot!
The victors put their foe into a pillow case and zip tied it shut. I’m not really sure what the Marine did with his catch, but I hope he took the prisoner to the park and let him go in the woods up there. That would seem to be the right thing to do.
Snippets and Tidbits 