The Problem With Snakes...

Saturday, June 28, 2008. I really messed up today. I was moving an old concrete blanket (that's a blanket to cover concrete to keep it from freezing, not a blanket made of concrete) and underneath was a little light grayish-green snake. At first I thought it was a big night crawler but when it started moving I could tell it was a small snake about 12 inches long, and I also noticed that it had a bright orange belly. I decided to take a picture, so I replaced the blanket, got my camera, and snapped a couple of photos. Then I got the bright idea to take it over to a friend's house to see if he could identify it. I just mean try to find out what kind of snake it is. I don't care about it's name or driver's license number. It was obviously a native so I didn't ask to see a green card.

I put the snake in a plastic ice cream bucket and set it on the floor of my truck on the passenger side. It didn't seem to be able to climb much as it only raised it's head a few inches up the side of the plastic bucket. It did cross my mind that I really didn't want it to get loose in my truck, but I thought that seemed unlikely.

Arriving at my friend's house I rang his door bell and waited a couple of minutes but he wasn't home. When I got back to the truck, the snake was no longer in the bucket and was no where to be seen. I looked carefully around, under the seats, under the mats, behind the tire jack, all around the console. No snake. I met a cousin at the town dumpster and together we looked again but still no snake. When I got home, I decided to try and smoke (figuratively speaking) him out. I turned the heater up to maximum and left it running for about fifteen minutes, but that didn't work and I decided I didn't want to cook him in there.

Now I guess I will not be falling asleep when driving my truck. I will ever be alert for that little snake to drop from the visor or crawl up my leg or the steerting wheel. I don't know how long a snake can live in such a place though I doubt he would make it through the winter. I guess unless I detect a really bad odor like the one made by a dead snake, I will continually be on the look-out, at least until the temperature drops below freezing.

By the way, if any one knows of someone that wants to drive to northern Canada, say somewhere above the arctic circle, I would let them borrow my truck.