Snakes on the Road

Here is the weekend “Snakes on the Road” count: Alive - 4. Dead - 3. Total - 7. Um, one may have “crossed over” from one category to the other, too. Maybe. And because snakes don’t resurrect, I will let you figure that out.

Yes, we saw seven snakes on the road over the weekend. And to clarify, by “weekend” I just mean Saturday and Sunday. There may have been one out Friday night as well. I didn’t think to start keeping track of them all at that time.

Seven snakes in two days, out on the move. That doesn’t look good for the summer, does it? Because if all of those snakes are out on the road, what will keep them from moving around our house? I’m thinking that putting out “No Snakes Allowed” and “Snakes Aren’t Welcome” signs probably won’t make much difference.

My grandfather once said, “I am only afraid of two kinds of snakes: live ones and dead ones.” I think he had a pretty good point. Because how do you know that one that looks dead isn’t really just sleeping and having some pleasant snake dreams about all the things he can bite?

Fortunately, we haven’t seen very many snakes around our house in the twelve years that we have lived there. We have had an occasional snake in the barn, one of which scared Laura pretty good when it was hiding under the bale of hay that she was moving. One time, a rather large snake was crawling across the back porch. I squirted it with water from the hose, and then started thinking that might not have been the best idea, but it did move on away from the house. I have gotten a few small ones with the tractor or the lawn mower, and a few others may have met an untimely fate in one way or another.

But seeing all of these out in one weekend, even if they were on the road as we drove, far away from our house, makes me wonder about how many there might be this year.

If you see me watching the ground closely while I am out walking, you will know why.