Look What was lurking in my Iris Bed.

Good for you, HappyJackMom. Someone said, "It takes a village". You did your part.

Mainer!! I had a good laugh about the warden that shot the "mouse". I wondered how in the world he managed to shoot it and how was it stopping traffic!! I then got to the denting cars and figured out finally that it had to be a moose!! LOL!!! I am slow today!!
No one teased with me with snakes when I was young because they soon found that I was more interested in what kind they were than screaming at them.
However, when I was older and attending a faculty picnic, the Asst. Principal and another teacher challenged my friend and I to a boat race across the lake. We got down to the lake and I told my friend who was also a teacher, that my canoe needed to have the water poured out of the bottom. I pulled it up and said..."wait, there is a snake in it"! I promptly went over, picked the snake up and threw it in the lake and continued on with the water removal. Needless to say, the guys didn't get their laugh and walked off!! However, the other faculty members who had been watching really got their laugh when the joke turned out to be on the guys!!
We too eat a lot of venison and VERY rarely buy beef. We make our own burger and sausage from it as well. I am pretty much game to try any meat at least once and haven't found anything yet that I didn't like. In WV they now have a roadkill law that allows people to pick up dead deer. Yes!! I have been part and party to even that in VA. No law here, but we have found deer too injured but still alive that we have shot and taken home. Vehicle accidents where one maybe has a broken neck, punctured heart, lots of broken bones/legs. I hate to see dead animals that could have been salvaged laying on the side of the road rotting just because the law says you can't have them!!
LOL!
Deb

Some former neighbors of ours hired casual laborers who were killing all the snakes they found while working on her property. What I would have given just to move them down the hill to our place!

well today a 4 foot snake went through my front flower bed as I was coming around the corner, I screamed and my next door neighbor who isn't afraid of them and who likes to catch them, came running, he was going to catch it and then saw how big it was and had second thoughts seeing as how he didn't have any gloves on and wasn't really in the mood to get bit.... but the snake won and went down a chipmonk hole in my bed.

now I'm not going to feel good about working in that bed, thank goodness most of my plants and replacement plants are pretty close to being in and so there isn't much more to do to that bed.

Those snakes sure know how to ruin my enjoyment of working in my flower beds.

I HATE SNAKES!

Janet

But if the snake went down the chipmonk hole, you will probably have fewer chipmunks and other rodents.
I once had a huge rat snake in my house in Mississippi. No one had been in the house in a while so mice had multiplied underneath the house and the rat snake was there to eat them.
But I didn't learn all that until later. My DH and I walked in the door and set up the plastic table and chairs we had bought and sat down for a glass of wine to celebrate my ownership of the house. My DH is a city boy and after a sip of wine each he said calmly, "Is that a snake?" I said, "Of course not, what are you looking at?" He pointed and I saw the snake. Egad, it was huge! I went up within about 6 ft. of it to check and see if it had a triangular head. It really didn't. It was all black -- no markings. So when DH asked me if it was poisonous. I replied that I didn't think so, but I thought we should be careful.
The poor thing was trying to climb up the chimney and wasn't succeeding, so I opened the patio door which was maybe 6 or 8 ft. away and went back to our plastic table. The snake slowly but surely went out the door and never bothered us again. Later we learned that there were so many mice there and they were so hungry that they had eaten all the insulation of the wiring underneath the house.
The next day the neighbor identified the snake as a rat snake and I was glad he was there. We saw him the next day but never again. Frankly, I was glad he was there and glad that my DH didn't freak out and refuse ever to come to the farm again which I was afraid of.
I know it is hard to believe but snakes are a very important part of our ecology, though I agree they can really give us a start and that we must be careful not to get too close to the poisonous ones.

I have had so much fun reading about everyones experiences with snakes. I'm sorry, I get all bent out of shape when I see snakes. I think my main problem is that to me they are all deadly. Mainly because they scare the bjebba's out of me each and every time I see one.

I have a huge area that I have alot of my irises planted in. Anyway when some of the iris leaves start to die they turn brown and start to curl and shrivel up looking a whole lot like snakes. I'm always thinking I've got a snake in my hand when I see them things and I toss whatevers in my hand in the air. I've screamed more than once at what was just a dead iris leave. LOL Of course after that my heart is beating about 900 miles an hour. Thumping out of my chest just about. Nothing like that to get you to paying closer attention to what your doing when pulling weeds.

My problem is I have too many holes on this place and I don't know what most of them are. We have a bunch of different kinds of toads that hang out in some of them. Then we have golpher holes, runs, and mounds. Still there's some other nice size holes that I have no ideal what's in them or has been using them. I'm always afraid there's some kind of big snake lurking inside them. Just call me scardy cat.....That's me!

Keep up the wonderful snake stories....keeps me on my toes.
Happy Gardening,
Marian

i respect snakes but am not afraid of them. i like them and only wish i was good at id'ing them. found one lying across a piece of plywood inside my garage this past weekend. took my walking stick and pressed his head down while i grabbed him around his head and then took him to the country. he was so happy to leave my company.

Wow - Mamajack!

You are definitely braver than me. I don't pick them up and I won't kill them. A few times I've come across one while working in the garden. I'll leave that area and let the snake rest in peace. A couple days later I'll check to make sure the snake has left before resuming work in that area.

Cathy :)

I have what I consider a healthy fear of snakes. Even the non-poisonous ones can bite if they feel threatened, so I keep my distance. They are welcome to share my garden. It's good to hear all these stories and I would never criticize anyone who kills one in fear, but I wish there was something we could recommend to them so they could be more comfortable.

I think I'm more afraid of spiders because they are small (sometimes!) and can get caught in your clothes, etc. I also have extreme reactions to insect/spider bites - but I don't have to worry about snake bites! Now earwigs really make me nervous! LOL

In Illinois, we don't have poisonous snakes in gardens (sometimes in streams and lakes). My husband, from Georgia, was used to having poisonous snakes and killing them. One day a big old snake surprised him while he was hoeing with my new hoe. By the time he had reacted, the hoe was this mass of curled up metal never to be a hoe again. The snake fared no better. It was a reaction and I understand the fear that can instantly strike people who are afraid.

Yuk earwigs! Disgusting, though harmless to humans. Sure can make a mess in your garden though.
I agree your fear of snakes is healthy. If a non-poisonous one bits you, it can become infected and then the doctor may want to give you anti-venom which is poisonous if you haven't had the venom!
I don't touch snakes. or spiders, but I keep a healthy distance.

Ever been bitten by an earwig? They HURT! We've had a lot more this year for some reason. They invaded my greenhouse walls and I thought I'd never get them out from between the panes. Now I have it ringed with diatomaceous earth.

I moved a bunch of pot plants around on the patio yesterday and I noticed a rather large number of earwigs under them. It's probably from all the rain we've been having lately but I'm not sure.

No rain here, I'm afraid. :-(

Earwigs love to live in places where there are a lot of rotting leaves -- or other decaying matter. It is for that reason that I compost my leaves instead of mulching with them. Leaves would be the perfect place for earwigs. They like the same places as sow bugs ( doodle bugs or roly polys to some.).

i never knew an earwig could bite you. how does it hurt....like a bee sting or an ant bite? never really knew an earwig but just in the last couple months my son said one crawled out of his ear. he wasn't bitten but does anyone know how it happens that he got an earwig in his ear?

Earwigs don't really bite, as I understand it. They pinch with those little pinchers on their tails. I don't find it all that painful but I guess it can be if they get you in the right place. Earwigs getting in one's ears is an old myth. I suppose your son could have had one walk into his ear when he was asleep, but they usually aren't found in beds. Was he lying on the grass or something?

i guess playing army in the grass and the fields. after he told me (of course i never saw it) i looked it up. when he finally got around to telling me he told me some awful story that the lady across the street told him...can't remember if it was going to eat his brain or if he was just going to mercifully die. it freaked me out. wikipedia says they actually do go into ears because it's warm and moist. i just wondered how often this actually occurred. jack is certainly my boy.

back to snakes or rather bites............get bit by a wood asp if you want to know what pain is. a snake bite might kill you but it couldn't hurt worse than the mighty wood asp.

I'll take your word for it, mamajack! Yes, the earwigs pinch rather than bite - guess I'm a wimp. :-)
The thing with earwigs is, they cling to your clothes and then crawl around. Maybe that's how they got their name? I was 'pinched' by one that way - it was on my shirt and crawled down to my bare arm. Perhaps if I hadn't seen it, it wouldn't have hurt so much! LOL

I am no one to call you a wimp. If you say it really hurt, it did. I have never had a bad pinch from them, but it certainly isn't something I would let happen on purpose. The fact that it ambushed you probably didn't help.
I have never heard of a wood asp and wouldn't know what to look out for if I saw it.
That stuff about earwigs eating your brains is an old wives tale. Don't worry about it. That lady who told your son that, was nasty.

Oooh, I read that message too fast. What a nasty lady to say that to Jack (unless he's old enough to get the joke). Don't worry, pajaritomt, I didn't think you were calling me a wimp. I'm quite willing to lay that appellation on myself when called for!

i don't think he thought it was a joke and i was just confused as he told me that he had found a bug in his ear. i thought he meant just then he had found a bug. woke me up at 2 in the morning. guess he couldn't sleep. anyways we looked it up and we both found out that he was safe. lol.

Safe....but, yuck!

I'd rather be attacked by an earwig than a snake or asp. The asp leaves a big welp on you and stings and burns worse than a swarm of bees. Been awhile since I was stung by one but it seems like it stung for several hours none stop.

Now where are all those other snakes stories and pictures?

Happy Gardening,
Marian

i knew it was a texas phenomenon marian. i came from miss. and never heard of wood asps. and when i got bit by one all the texas folk nearly in the whole town of fate came to give me their own home remedy. we put chewed tobacco, bleach, detergent and i forget what all else but the only thing that helped was ice and yes for hours.

Is it like a bee or a wasp?

oh, no. i barely even flinch with a bee sting. this is an unstoppable continuous aching deep throbbing with every pulse pain. this was one reason they used laudanum in the old days i betcha.

Well I've heard of all those old remedies and I think I've tried everyone of them at sometime or another in my life. I've got into Bull Nettle and that stuff stings and itches like the devil. Another old wives tale is to pee on it and it will stop itching. Don't ask me how I know, but that doesn't work either. LOL

I get so tickled at people (my husband and sister) that are scared of bees, wasp and so forth. I just go out there and do my thing. I don't bother them and they don't bother me. I try to explain to them that they are not going to bother you unless you mess with them or swat at them.

Happy Gardening, Marian

marian i pet bees and taught my kids to do the same. they amaze their friends when they do that. hahaha and the peeing was the thing i didn't mention. good grief. i kept having to take my foot out of the ice everytime someone showed up with a new remedy.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather have snakes ~ non-poison ~ in my yard than mosquitoes and No-see-ums*! They are chewing me up! They don't like my DH thank Heavens, and no matter what I wear or put on, they target ME.

http://www.backyardnature.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl.h,content=692

I bought no see um hoods this year. They work! They only cost less than 10.00 each, and are worth their weight in gold. Well, they don't weigh much. They have elastic that goes under the arms to hold them down. It's best to wear a hat under them to keep the net away from your face, but boy, what a difference. I can cover the rest of my body, but they used to get in my hair, and they targeted my eyes.

Sounds like I need one of those hoods Polly. Can I find one on line? My right temple and cheek are all itchy, swollen and red. I've got lumps on the top of my head, and I wear a hat! I've never been bothered by them before. But this year they are terrible! Our neighbors around the corner and down two block had their donkeys up here earlier this year and they were bitten so bad he had to take them into town to the vet and be put on IV's of Benadryl. The darned pests had chewed their ears and the vet said laid eggs under the skin! So, I just took two Benadryl and going to hope I can sleep tonight.

Good night friends, Donna

happyjack, has it been raining in arizona?

Yes, rain and hail. We had two DGF's over today and they got here just in time for another small rain fall and hail, AGAIN. I can sure do without that hail, but we need more rain.

is this unusual for yall?

Donna, here's where I got mine from. There are some to be found cheaper, but these were rreally nice. I didn't get any bugs up under it, it fits snug to the chest where the elastic pulls it down.

Now I see they have ankle guards too. I might get those, it's the only other area they seem to find.

http://www.bugbaffler.com/products.htm

They were shipped quickly too, and shipping wasn't too bad.

No MamaJack, hail storms are not unusual here at all, there just seems to be more than we are used to having. One year in July, we had a hail storm so bad that it ruined the house roof and damaged the outbuildings too. But thank Heavens our home insurance covered it all, including the gutters and down spouts.

Polly, thanks for the link, I will look into it!

Polly,

Looking at all the products they have, http://www.bugbaffler.com/products.htm which one(s) did you get that you're taking about?

Are they warm and/or hot to wear? Because of my MS, I get hot easily. Are they washable and what about drying?

Marilyn

Oh wow, I had never seen one of those things to wear and keep the bugs away. All of us gardeners need one or two of them. I know I'd save a ton on bug spray that I have to use on my body each and everyday I'm working in the beds. I thank you for the link Polly and I'm going to order me one.

What do I have to lose except a bunch of bug bites.??? Have any of you tried those wrist and ankle cords that have something to repel the bugs? I've seen them but I haven't heard from anyone how good they work.

I'm willing to try something different if someone will tell me they work.

Thanks for that little netting thingy. I'm going to get me one!
Happy Gardening,
Marian

Marilyn, I got the hood net, the 7.00 one. It is not hot, if you keep it away from your face, with a hat, otherwise, I didn't find it hot, but I found I was breathing a little heavier.

I haven't had to wash it yet, and this is the second season I've worn it. Over a hat it really doesn't get dirty at all.

They dry in no time, I just hang it on a hook. There is really nothing to them but netting.

You're welcome, Marian.