...and freaked out so many times in the span of 30 minutes that i KNOW i did some damage to my heart.
so i'm walking outside to let the dog in. i stopped when i saw her hunched over and staring at the bush near the fence with one paw up (think hound dog pointing at a duck). so, i go over to take a look, thinking it was a cute bunny or chick or something.
well, no, not that cute. i almost peed my pants. this is what i saw.
the snake was in my driveway IN THE SUBURBS and i would guess that, if stretched out, it would be about 4 feet long (seeing since, coiled up, it was at least 2 feet).after my initial freak out complete with near pants-wetting almost loud scream, i tried to stop the dog from trying to play with and eat it and get her inside. she, of course, did not want to with her new friend slithering in front of the door so i tried the age old trick of "wanna go for a ride?" which made her run to the car and jump in. then i went back inside to get my camera.
even knowing it was there, i still freaked out a little when i stepped outside to snap photos of it. mostly, i wanted proof of the snake since no one would believe my story, but also wanted pictures to look it up on the internet and to take to the emergency vet in case the snake bit my dog before i came out on the off chance it was venomous.
i finally got it inside to look it up, and after i thoroughly examined my dog for bites, the first web page i come to has a snake that looks like this:
which is the eastern massasauga rattlesnake, the only venomous snake in michigan. i freaked again, thinking that it was just my luck that i would have, in the middle of the city, the only suburban postage stamp yard that the ONLY venomous snake in michigan had made it its home. after calming down a bit, i compared pictures, and told myself that the snakes in my backyard did NOT have a rattler, and the head is totally different, and my snake is skinnier.
so i've decided that my snake is like this one. it's an eastern milk snake. non venomous and minding its own business. and now that the shock is over, i just wonder what it's doing here, in the city, and even think it's kinda cute. i shall name him Pookie.
my final freak out startle complete with sky high jumping out of my seat came when i was researching snakes on the internet and came across this webpage and scrolled down to see this photo...
i don't know why it freaked me out but this little tiger salamander just did. and it is kinda creepy in a cute way.
9 comments:
want a good scare? check this out!
oh i know i saw that one it was crazy. but i'm also not a big fan of the whole "recreational hunting campus". poor large huge creepy hog.
What a beautiful snake. I think you're lucky to have it around since it means there's plenty of mice etc. for it to eat.
When I lived in California, I had a gopher snake that was about five feet long that lived under my deck. It was decided that the snake was a she and named Henrietta. Henrietta was very docile and did a good job keeping down the rats (oh my god, the rats of suburban California are numerous and sassy)and from time to time would tolerate being handled.
The people who bought the house were thrilled to hear about Henrietta and on the final walkthrough of the house, she made an appearance on the deck. If the buyers had been freaked or mentioned getting rid of her, I would have cancelled the sale. The house was as much the snake's as it was mine and she deserved good tenants.
he is a beautiful snake, prettier than an average garter. i think he may have been just passing through though as we cannot find it. although the thought of eating mice cause we have them is kinda creepy.
O M freaking G!!!!!!!! I screamed when I saw the picture and put my feet up on the chair! (I am so weird!) See, I hate snakes, I almost put that as one of my random things about me...but thought against it since I thought a lot of people hate snakes, well apparently not from your comments!
I would have freaked out and had someone come kill it! No joke!!!!!
CRAZY and cool at the same time. What a way to jump start the heart and get the blood flowing. - Greenbutterfly (to lazy to log in hehe)
ABOUT peed your pants??? My husband WOULD have. He absolutely HATES snakes. I think they're kind of cool, and that one is gorgeous!
We saw a rattler while hiking in Arkansas a couple of years ago. Very cool. Well, I thought so, even if my husband about had a heart attack.
That's a really nice big one! Wish we had some bigger ones around here, but we have a lot of little garter snakes. My son has picked up two in the past couple of days. Perhaps it's better our snakes are little and harmless.
Good grief! That is my biggest fear. Even after 30 years of gardening, a little garter snake would make me hang up my gardening gloves forever.
Growing up on Saginaw Bay, we often saw large eastern milk snakes that looked like Pookie. Thank goodness, they didn't follow me south!
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