everyone be careful out there

I've encounter a baby one here. It was not much larger than a pencil but it displayed all the bravado of a larger, older one. This skinny little thing reared up like a cobra and tried to strike at me, this happened several times and when that did not do the trick it rolled over and played dead. It was hysterical.

Snakes, in general, are great to have around...but the venomous ones are the snakes you don't need to feel guilty about getting rid of. My brother's lab was bitten by a pygmy rattler and died. He replaces his dog with another lab, but 3 years later he heard the dog barking in the driveway, and there was another pygmy rattler coiled up. He grabbed the dogs collar to pull it away and take it inside, and the rattler struck and bit his hand. He had "over the allowed quota" of anti-venom, and still almost lost his arm. After a month in the hospital, and an arm the size of the Hindenberg, it finally started to go down. The problem with the swelling is that it isn't water swelling within the tissue, but the actual tissue itself swells. They were just about to cut long slices with scalpels, from armpit to wrist, an inch apart, over and over, to get rid of the swelling and not allow the swollen tissue to explode the arm. Of course, it also would have left him pretty much without the use of one arm. He said the pain, even several years later, was nothing he had ever experienced before in his life (this is the guy who suffered a major heart attack and died several times on the table from it, and finally passed away from total body cancer) but the bite and it's aftermath, was the pain he couldn't forget!
That's NOT the kind of snake I need in my yard! Florida has limited venemous snakes....6 I believe. Coral snakes, rattlers, pygmy rattlers, cottonmouth, copper heads, and 1 more, but off the top of my head I don't remember the other 2.

Boy am I getting a snake education from this thread.
I've never seen a rattler in FL, and we have camped all around the state for well over twenty years. My husband has lived here all his life and said he only has seen one. I have seen coral snakes a few times. I guess I've just been lucky.
I have had so many encounters with other types of snakes though.
Once in the Keys I was taking a late shower in the bath house and looked down and a huge yellow rat snake was all around the perimeter of the shower stall floor, with me in the middle...naked. Not fun. ☺



This message was edited Aug 24, 2012 3:56 PM

sunkissed....Honestly the few venemous snakes we have around here don't usually pose too much of a problem With only 6 of them..2 of them are rattlers and make noise, one is brightly colored, and copperheads are mostly in northern Florida. So that takes down the risk, unless you mess with them. Cotton mouth's certainly show themselves, so just leave immediately! They can be aggressive. Most of the time I'm more freaked out by Cuban Tree Frogs and Black Widow spiders! I've only seen one scorpion (alive) and they're creepy too! :)

i'm still laughing over alice's pencil-sized hognose! so funny!

i'm in the "need for education" camp on all things, but especially when it comes to things like snakes, whose pros far outweigh their cons. merrymary is absolutely right about everything she said.

we had lots of scorpions in the keys but i've never seen one here. i'll tell you what i'm more afraid of than snakes (but mostly for my dog's sakes) are the huge two-striped walking sticks. they give me the creeps but the fact that they can spit venom and aim for the eyes makes me jumpy. you can suffer immediate blindness and must wash out the eyes right away or there can be permanent damage. they're either on the ground by the door when i walk out or else climbing the brick and just about eye level with me.......
my dog who is the snake killer and totally fearless, will jump two feet straight up if she comes up on one suddenly so i know she's been zapped before (in her former running the roads life).
we are just coming into season on them now. i've seen four but by end of fall, i will have seen at least a hundred. what's weird is that the first four years we lived here, i never saw one. http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/301/#b

http://www.google.com/webhp?sa=N&tab=lw#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bcqn%2Ccconf%3D1.0%2Cmin_length%3D2%2Crate_low%3D0.035%2Crate_high%3D0.035%2Csecond_pass%3Dfalse%2Cnum_suggestions%3D2%2Cignore_bad_origquery%3Dtrue&gs_nf=1&cp=11&gs_id=16&xhr=t&q=two+striped+walking+stick&pf=p&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=two+striped&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=1&biw=1125&bih=587&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&cad=b

i hope i'm not giving anyone nightmares!

Holy cow! Thanks for the info! I wasn't aware that they spit!

^_^

Hey Debi, Is this the critters of which you speak? As you can imagine we are getting ready for some heavy weather down here.

Scott

that's them, scott. the little one on top is the male. coloring seems to be varied. yours looks more brown while mine are almost black with distinctive yellow stripes. they aren't aggressive and move rather slowly. i just watch out this time of year, especially in the garden where they are camouflaged. if they feel threatened, they will spit.

yes, tuned to the weather channel as we speak. last i heard, the storm surge was predicted at about 7' which would mean about 3' in our old house on tavernier. the reef eats up some of it, as you know.
stay safe and keep in touch here, if you can, so we know what's going on down there.

debi

pic of my houses in tavernier.

I've never killed ANY snake in my yard venomous or not. Guess what no rat ot mouse problems here at my house on natural wetlands in North Fl.
I do kill grasshoppers thou and sure there is a place in Buddha's reborn hell for me . I just don't understand killing a snake as it may do something to you sometime in the future . I camp , I hike, I garden and I leave them alone and they do the same for me.
I think killing a snake just to do it is wrong . Sorry but think that the talking snake in the bible made people odd and killers.

see ya there!

Geez I love living down here! Just went out and did a bit of recon, the grocery store is mellow as can be with nobody needing to panic buy...they are already prepared. Very few homes have thier shutters down yet, no lines at the gas stations. Had three locals ask if I needed any help getting ready. Talked to a friend in Bonita Springs and she said people are freaking out which is what happens when you don't STAY prepared.

All I really have left to do is set down about 80 hanging baskets but I want to wait til the last minute or the Key Deer will have a feast. I'll keep you posted.

Tryin' to reason with hurricane season.
Scott

we loved it there too and i agree with you. conchs have been through it all before; been there and done that. we know how to stay prepared!

Staying prepared is always the way to go. I always chuckle at the people buying batteries and water at the last minute. Duh, they have been talking about this storm for days........ As low as the Lowcountry is, our home would be underwater were a storm to come this way and there are mandatory evacuations. We have 7' tides on a normal day and they are often 9' during the fall moon tides. To avoid the traffic we always get out of dodge long before the official call, we just consider it an unplanned vacation. If the storm turns away, no biggie, we have had a good time with family and friends.

Now I don't want you to think I am suggesting anything but, one of my friends swears by his personal brand of deer repellent. He relieves himself around the plants he does not want the deer to chomp on. With all your neighbors evacuated you could have at it. LOL

roflol @ alice's suggestion!
i have a sneaky feeling that scott already does that more than he'll admit to.....:-)

I have been known to recycle nutrients by adding a bit of ammoniacal nitrogen to my landscape plants but unfortunately the subspecies of the Virginia Whitetail known as Key Deer (or lovingly refered to as Long Legged Rats when eating my plants or strewing garbage from my freshly knocked over trash cans) are so completely innured to human contact that they can care less.
They laugh at our savage Dachshund when she attempts to protect our gardens. They have figured out the gate code to our 5' chainlink fence and pass it around at secret Key Deer parties. They send in their buddies the iguanas to taste test various botanical species for them. They have learned to munch only the costliest and rarest cultivars, working their way down the horticultural buffet by unerringly and systematically destroying plants...and after 35 years have I learned the lesson to only grow what they don't eat...no, I haven't...sigh.
Scott

The culprits.
Scott

LOL, well, take care and get those baskets down before they come through the windows. Stay safe.

we never really learn when it comes to coveting plants! roflol
....and i like your explanation too...i needed a good giggle.

Take your WIND CHIMES down and bring them in, or spend the next 2 months TRYING to untangle them! Ask me how I know this!!!!

that's the first thing i bring in! i KNOW! LOL

been thinking about you K. stay safe up there....you might get hit pretty bad from what i'm seeing so far.

I've killed two pygmy rattlers this week. With all the rain they are coming up from the wildlife management area that our property backs up to.
With a 5 year old grandson, a Beagle, outdoor cats and some of my riding students are younger kids....I'm not taking any chance.
The first one I spied laying along the edge of one of the flower beds on the coquina rock...they other was inches away from my hand while I was weeding.

Kay, yup looks like you might get a pretty good hit from this.
We may get some rain and pretty breezy so I'll be bringing some of the hanging pots and orchids under cover...but other wise we aren't too worried.

Thanks, Debi and Martha - this will be my first BAD storm, so if they even hint that we need to evacuate, we're heading to Atlanta.

still chuckling over those secret deer parties.....
mjs, gotta love those beagles. excessive rain always brings more than just lush greenery in florida-lots of stuff heading for higher ground.
depending on where your property is, i'd say a ride to atlanta sounds good but then sometimes you end up driving into worse weather that way....wherever you go, plan on staying a few days till it's north of you.

meant to add this picture of our old, long departed, much loved beagle....kopperdabeagle. she was a rescue from a dumpster at kopperman's deli in st.louis. this picture was in the keys. she was after the cat's food that we had in a beagle-proof area. gotta give her credit for trying.

Great beagle picture!! Got those baskets down, somehow their number has swollen from 80 to 103...Humm how did that happen? ;) Just as I got them down on the ground I noticed a freaked out deer running around the yard. The story of my life...but I guess she will have a pre-storm banquet. The dachshunds had to be forced out the door and had no interest in property protection.

The wind is getting gusty with the rainy feeder bands. As Jimmy Buffet said..."time to close the shutters, time to go inside..."

Life is a breeze in the Fl Keys
Scott

here's hoping you're on the south side....

Be safe, everyone - you are in my prayers.

Scott that is too funny about the Key deer...I love the photo. Hope you fare well while this storm blows by you.

Hey Kay we have reservations in a couple weeks at St. Andrews state park...have you ever been there? Meeting up with some of my cooking friends there for an annual gathering. I sure hope these storms don't take aim on you...or reach that Cat 2 status.

I guess I should go out and take down my hanging plants and wind-chimes. put the umbrellas in the shed...but a part of me says don't worry about it. I'll wait until I see if the wind picks up...calm as can be here.

Hope everyone stays safe while this thing blows on by...I just heard a transformer blow...weird because we don't have any wind yet. My poor cats hit the ceiling...we still have Internet and lights...so I'm good.
-Sherri

We are just getting our first really good storm cell in a feeder band. Lost one good sized Buttonwood branch 8"-10" dia.
So far so good still have power.

Scott
"Squalls out on the gulfsteam,
big storms comin' soon..."

Sherri, yes - I've been to St. Andrew's park - just more beach and a jetty.

i read that the Buttonwood (a Mangrove cousin) is designed to break limbs during storms so that the main trunk stays intact. it must be true. every storm we had, the Buttonwood branches would fall like rain.

looks like Big Pine had its share of wind. we had two rain bands, one with some gusty wind but no big shakes. i guess we'll get more tonight. hope the keys will be out of it soon.

I agree track, as of now…We in the Northeast corner have had 1 band come through, but supposed to be expecting many more , Mon.- Wed. Good thoughts heading down to all of you South! And West! Stay Safe All!

she was a sweetheart; that's for sure.

we had an inch so far today but it might be starting to clear up.
sherri, how are doing over there? looks like the east coast is getting beat up pretty bad with flooding.
kay, going or staying?

i like hounds too but i don't usually get to pick. we just end up with what comes our way....! ^_^

Deb, I am doing o.k. We currently have 20 m.p.h. sustained winds and a few sprinkles - the real stuff won't hit until the tide comes in around 7 p.m.

(((kay)))

Not much going on here either. A few drops and a tad of gusts...nothing to write home about. The dogs aren't even freaked out...they usually do when bad weather is headed this way. Hopeing for rain, but the wind can STAY AWAY.