Monday, August 21, 2006
Where were those snakes, again?
So there I was, coming home from the Post Office. I turned the last corner to the dirt spur road our house is on, and Suddenly! There it was! A snake! On the plane! (Of the level roadbed.)
I didn't actually recognize what it was at first, because it was stretched out in a completely straight line--not a common pose for a snake. Out of habit I steered so as to miss it, but it was so long I can't believe I didn't clip it on one end or the other.
Once my brain registered that it was indeed a BIG snake in the road, I hit the brakes, turned off the car, and ran back to see if it was alive. I guess maybe it was trying to sun itself (it was cool here today), because once it saw me, it curled up without any problem, hissing and vibrating its totally rattle-free tail, trying to scare me off.
Instead, I tried to scare IT off the road. I knew if our neighbors came home and saw it, they would kill it, even though it was only a harmless bullsnake. (Though a whomping big one. Its middle was bigger around than my wrist!)
So the snake and I faced off a few minutes, each totally failing to scare the other one away. But I am a clever tool using mammal, and he (or she) was not. I went to my car and got--my camera! Oh, and the second best umbrella.
Whooshing the umbrella in its face did the trick. It backed away hissing REALLY loud, and even tried to bite it a couple times! But it did end up in the weeds beside the road, and I hope it had the good sense to slither off some other direction.
Here's the best 2 pics.
I think its markings are really pretty.
Here's a close-up of the head. Did you know that you can tell a non-venomous snake by its round pupils? Also the "pit" is back near the jaw point, instead of between the eye and nostril. And there are an even number of scales between the eyes...or something like that. The trouble with these identifiers is that you DO have to get kinda close to check them out, and that might turn out to be a bad idea.
On the topic of pictures, before I left I did finally get my Photo Essay page up and running.
http://neonnurse.net/photesstoc.htm
As I think I said before, I am going to try to do two a week until I get my backlog of pics caught up (which might take me a long time!) So far what's on there is the auction page, and a four page one of the Harry and the Potters/Draco and the Malfoys library concerts we went to a few weeks ago.
Tonight I added an upgraded version of a page I did a couple years ago. On the way back from one of Mike's orthodontist appointments, we stopped in Granada at the site of Amache, the old Japanese internment camp. It's a small page, only 6 photos. I'm hoping I can add to it one of these days, since some groups are trying to get a museum going there.
http://neonnurse.net/amache.htm
I didn't actually recognize what it was at first, because it was stretched out in a completely straight line--not a common pose for a snake. Out of habit I steered so as to miss it, but it was so long I can't believe I didn't clip it on one end or the other.
Once my brain registered that it was indeed a BIG snake in the road, I hit the brakes, turned off the car, and ran back to see if it was alive. I guess maybe it was trying to sun itself (it was cool here today), because once it saw me, it curled up without any problem, hissing and vibrating its totally rattle-free tail, trying to scare me off.
Instead, I tried to scare IT off the road. I knew if our neighbors came home and saw it, they would kill it, even though it was only a harmless bullsnake. (Though a whomping big one. Its middle was bigger around than my wrist!)
So the snake and I faced off a few minutes, each totally failing to scare the other one away. But I am a clever tool using mammal, and he (or she) was not. I went to my car and got--my camera! Oh, and the second best umbrella.
Whooshing the umbrella in its face did the trick. It backed away hissing REALLY loud, and even tried to bite it a couple times! But it did end up in the weeds beside the road, and I hope it had the good sense to slither off some other direction.
Here's the best 2 pics.
I think its markings are really pretty.
Here's a close-up of the head. Did you know that you can tell a non-venomous snake by its round pupils? Also the "pit" is back near the jaw point, instead of between the eye and nostril. And there are an even number of scales between the eyes...or something like that. The trouble with these identifiers is that you DO have to get kinda close to check them out, and that might turn out to be a bad idea.
On the topic of pictures, before I left I did finally get my Photo Essay page up and running.
http://neonnurse.net/photesstoc.htm
As I think I said before, I am going to try to do two a week until I get my backlog of pics caught up (which might take me a long time!) So far what's on there is the auction page, and a four page one of the Harry and the Potters/Draco and the Malfoys library concerts we went to a few weeks ago.
Tonight I added an upgraded version of a page I did a couple years ago. On the way back from one of Mike's orthodontist appointments, we stopped in Granada at the site of Amache, the old Japanese internment camp. It's a small page, only 6 photos. I'm hoping I can add to it one of these days, since some groups are trying to get a museum going there.
http://neonnurse.net/amache.htm
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