Look What was lurking in my Iris Bed.

I live in Southern Maine. About a month ago I was about to leave to pick up my kids from high school and I noticed outside my kitchen in my garden was a racoon. It was a bright sunny day. Hmmm, I thought. That's wierd. Aren't racoons nocturnal? Well I made lots of noise stomping around and banging pots and then proceeded out the kitchen door and down the sidewalk to the car in the driveway. I realized that I had left the bulkhead open in the back of the house so I turned around and AHHHH! There was the racoon in the garden - then coming down the sidewalk towards me! He was a big fella so I turned and walked calmly towards the car. When I turned the thing was running towards me chattering away. I freaked and ran the rest of the way opened the door and slammed it. the racoon came right up to the driver's side door, came up on his hind legs and scratched at the door handle. It was so big that its head was looking in the bottom of the window! Of course I felt like it must be rabid out in broad daylight like that! He then turned and went off into the field and into the weeds. when I got my whits about me, I went into town to pick up the kids and on my way stopped into the police station to report it. He says, "where do you live?" When I told him he says, "Oh yeah, your neighbor's kids have been feeding it and petting it!! they just came down here yesterday to complain that now the thing is damaging their siding on their house trying to get in!!! Dumb, dumb people! they were even taking pictures of it with their kids petting and feeding it! Well needless to say I was the laughing stock of my friends and family when they pictured me screaming and running to my car. It was not rabit but ended up taking up residence in our garden shed. It figured out how to open the door which was unlocked and was living up in the loft. My DH read that putting amonia in open cans around where you want them gone works. They read the amonia smell like large animal urine. Well it worked. The fella is gone and I am still the brunt of jokes, but darnit, I was scared! The chattering it made was creepy!

You aren't the only one that was scared, reading I was thinking it was mad as well.

Why or why can't folks be smart when it comes to wildlife and not feed them. It really is for their own good and us humans in the long run.

Glad it turned out not to be.

Janet

I was once stalked by a rabid dog on my way to school. Luckily, my path went right by the local police station and by the time I got there, I was so frightened I was screaming. They took me in the office and had the animal control people come snare the dog. He was rabid and evidently followed me because he had been after our family dog and was hanging around the house.

You had every right to be frightened! Your neighbors were the dumb ones.

OMG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EWE!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you okay now? I always were engineer boots outside, the come up high and nothing gets through them, I wish they made some kind of armor for are hands and arms.

That is a scary tale MusicMonkey2,
I would have been right there with you or I would have died right in my tracks. LOL

A couple of days ago I was out working in the yard again. I was raking leaves, grass clippings, and those darned old sweetgum balls up. I got one side nice and clean and a big pile of debris when I decided I should go turn the water on and move the water sprinkler. As I was walking over to move it, I ran across a BIG SNAKE....I started screaming at the top of my lungs for my husband, and I ran to the place where I was working to grab something to get to kill the snake with or at least get it to see what kind it was. By the time I got back over there and my husband came out it was gone- vanished into thin air.

I moved every pot, every elephant ear leaf, and anything that I thought that snake might have crawled under to no avail. That's ok, it's not going to sucker me in, I know it's still lurking out there in my yard waiting on me to pounce and bite me. Needless to say I didn't finish the job I had started and doubt if I will. I'm not picking up all that junk, that snakes probably hiding from me in it. LOL

I'm not going to be reaching in and pulling any weeds out from around these areas any more either. You can call me chicken or whatever but I'm not risking getting bitten by a snake that was over 2 ft long and about the size of my wrist around. I did not see his/her head and I don't really know how long it was, but what I did see was at least 2 ft and I can't even tell you the color other than black and brown with some kind of design on it's back. DH say's it was probably either a copperhead or rattlesnake. All I know is all snakes are deathly when it comes to my health.

This is the first snake I've seen this close to the house. I shudder just thinking about it and then I try to remember that snakes are good and have a purpose. But so am I and I'd just as soon they move away from the house at least a few 100 ft.

Anyway I went to the store and bought 4 boxes of Mothballs to put out around everything. I think it's an old wives tale that they will keep the snakes away because of the smell. Doesn't matter, I spread them around the base of my house, around my pond, and in several of my flowerbeds. Then on top of that I put some of them on top of my airconditioner unit outside. Now when its running the smell of mothballs fill the air. I don't know if it's working to keep the snakes away but it sure seems to help out with the mesquitoes. I'm sure it's something to do with the strong odor but whatever it is I think I'll use it for a couple of weeks and see what the end results are. I'll post later and let you all know. Another thing, if it works to keep the bugs away hopefully it will keep the canna leaf rollers away to. I'd by them all the time if they would just get rid of them nasty things. For the last two years my cannas have looked like something from a war zone. Now wouldn't it be something if these mothballs kept the moths that lay the leaf rollers off my plants.

Well this is getting way off line, best stop here and hope that none of you come across a snake as big as the last on I had in my back yard.....

Happy Gardening, Marian

marian almost every spring i have to cut the canna down to the ground to remove the leaf rollers. they grow back pretty fast and still bloom. just a non chemical fix. lol. also in the fall you are supposed to remove all canna from the garden as they can overwinter in them.

get on back out there and find that snake.

Seriously, you guys need to hang some Moth Balls around, they work!!!!!!!!!!!

on leaf rollers, 1913? really?

Hang them around where the woods (weeds, plants, etc) provide alot of cool shade for the critters, and keep the grasses cut short, they love to be cool on hot days and if they find a good cool hiding place they will claim it. They do not like the smell, just like Irish Spring soap. And we just moved our duck house and there was alot of straw, we raked and there they were, COPPERHEADS, they also like wood piles. I kill them all, I carry a pitch fork with me and use that to lift things first before my hands get near it as well as tall grass, the fork or the mower hit them first. I was tilling some loose dirt last season and I tilled up a snake, I had my Engineer boots on and I felt something hit my boot and I looked down and it was slithering off, but If I would not have had those boots on I would have gotten bit.

Here you go, it was probably a good snake but it was in the garden and eatting one of my baby bunnies and so I wasn't too happy. I'm fairly certain this was either a chicken snake or a rat snake, either way, it's gone to the great snake place in the sky. I measured it and it was actually over 5 ft long. I would straighten it out to take the photo and of course it would start moving.

Now you see why I was screaming so loud. I really don't think this was the same snake as the other one had some kind of design on it's back. Now EVERYTHING I see looks like a snake to me. LOL

Happy Gardening, and snake hunting.....
I just watched some crazy guys on the news yesterday going out in lakes and catching snakes with their bare hands. Those guys gotta be CRAZY or one brick shy of a load. LOL

Here you go look and enjoy!

another view....of the bunny killer! The underside of the darn thang. Thank goodness a buzzard or something ate it and it was gone this afternoon when I checked on it.

We have turkey vultures here that go after road kill - they are almost as bad as the snakes!

you LIKE the baby bunnies? they eat all my baby veggies! Bad Bunnies!

Bonjon I don't like the bunnies in the garden, but I'd rather have it than the snake. LOL We have two inside dogs that will keep the bunnies run off as long as we're outside. But once we come in it's a free for all outdoors. We feed the birds, feed the fish, feed the deer, and looks like we're feeding the rabbits and snakes too.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the great outdoors and all creatures great and small. But that doesn't mean I want the snakes where I'm pulling weeds, playing in the dirt, and so forth. I'd just as soon they stay out of my sight and then they can live a happy peaceful life. That is of course unless one of the horses stomps them to death.

We have a huge veggie garden and the deer are the ones that really trash them. We have several acres in watermelons and cantaloupe and every year the deer gets about half of them. The worse part is they wait till they are ripe and ready to be picked and eat them the night before your going to pick them. LOL
Don't even say pick them a day earlier, cause that doesn't work either. I think the deer can read our mind as to when we will harvest them and make a B line to them that night.

I guess it's a good thing we plant plenty of EVERYTHING we want to eat.
Happy Gardening, Marian

LOL - my dog also chases the bunnies and squirrels away. they dart all over the place,,,,, and I end up with iris stalks downed and scattered every which direction! LOL almost ran over a very large cottontail the other morning.

Lovelyiris

I have that same snake here, in your picture & it is big, I have all snakes on my property killed . A little girl not far from here was out running in the school playground & was bite by a baby rattle snake on the foot, they killed the snake, it was only a foot long, she had to have anti-venom & was in the hospital for a few days
Last year my neighbors flooded me out with there irrigation ditches , it was a water bog around the whole house so it brought in snakes , I had snakes laying all over the sidewalks, doorsteps, in the garage, yard, garden, everywhere masses of them, pest control could not believe there eyes when they seen all the snakes here.
Even a bull snake can be deadly, I had a cat who was bit by a bull snake & died 4 days after, the vet passed it off, as its just a bull snake, no harm & would not treat the cat, then it came out in paper a few weeks later, a man arrived in the local hospital ER after being bit by a bull snake & had the same swelling & classic symptoms of a rattlesnake bit, he killed the snake that bit him & took it with him, it was a large bull snake, since bull snakes will kill rattle snakes, they themselves absorb some of that venom and the dead snake was taken to a lab & confirmed it had traces of rattlesnake venon in it, the man was given anti-venon & he told paper he will never pick up a bull snake again.

mold balls are one of the ingredients in snake repelant the one I buy has cinnamon, which they suppose to hate also, gives a good smell around the house like baking cinnamon rolls & I coat my doorstep ,garage & walks with it & sprinkle it thru out the iris

Oh, Mainecoon, I can't imagine having that many snakes around! Don't blame you for killing them. I like the idea of the cinnamon, too!

I don't think it's ever a good thing to be bitten by any animal - we never know what reaction an individual can have and what that animal has been into. ...shiver...

Well I may be wishing that we hadn't killed the snake. I'm being ran over by those darling little cotton tail bunnies. They startle me almost as much as a snake when I'm out there working in the beds and all of a sudden something darts between your legs/ you see something moving out of the corner of your eye. I'm always jumping out of my skin and the first thing on my mind is SNAKE!!!

Mainecoon, I wouldn't be going outside at all if I had that many snakes show up around my house. At the very least I'd have a shotgun loaded to the max and shoot/blowup anything and everything that moved. I bet that scene looked like something from a Horror movie. I shudder at the thought of all those snakes. Better you than me!
Gives a whole new meaning to Walk softly and carry a big STICK/GUN! LOL

Happy Gardening, Marian

oh me! I refuse to let Hon kill any of Gods creatures - snakes included.

Neighbors look strange when they learn I keep a 4 - 6 foot tree limb just to "carry" lost snakes to the other side of our golf course
(deeper wooded areas).

the last one was a CopperHead.
Strange, but the thing looked edgie (nervous) at first then got the idea,
got comfy (not coiled), and enjoyed the ride - i think.

HOWEVER - if I felt threatened - there Would be a TotallyDifferent Story!

I love the wild rabbits and the baby bunnies! They so cute! : )

I just don't like it if they're eating my plants. I keep a large bottle (think it's 32 oz.) of cayenne pepper that I get at Kroger (local grocery store here that has stores in other states) to sprinkle onto the plants that have been chewed on by them. Have to reapply after rain.