The Snake in the garden......

Snakes. I really have no problem with snakes. I’m pretty laisez faire about them in my yard. They eat rodents. I like that. Just eh other day I saved a big one from my dog. But yesterday, well yesterday I killed one.
I went out in the morning to look at the little concrete pond in my back yard to see how the six goldfish I tossed in there were doing.




When I walked up tot the pond something splashed into the water, which is not unusual. Typically it is a frog but this time I noticed something strange in the water. There was a fairly large snake sitting on the bottom of the pool. I actually didn’t make the connection between the movement and the snake at first. It was still on the bottom and my first thought was that a snake had drowned in the pool. (possible in a swimming pool but not so much in this) I picked up my dip net and scooped it out and had a large angry snake that suddenly looked very much like a water moccasin in my net. I wasn’t certain at first but it had the wedge head, the thick body and the mottled marking s that are common to moccasins. There are also some other water snakes that look a lot like that too so I took the snake over to the edge of the woods and dropped the net and prodded the snake with a long stick. The snake reared up and struck at the stick and there I saw the flash of the famous white mouth.

Now about two years ago I lost a dog to a snake bite and I am not eager to repeat the event. Since both the dog and the cats use the concrete pond as their watering hole I picked up and long heavy chunk of fat lighter and killed the snake. I don’t mind snakes but I don’t want poisonous ones living were my animals drink.

In the evening, when I came home from work I took a picture of the dead snake. The dollar bill is so you can see its size. If you look closely at the edges of the snake you can see the ants busily at work recycling it.