Don't Tread On Me

So far this year I have seen five very large black snakes. It is just part of living here in this house in the rural country side. No escaping it. If you don't like snakes or are fearful of them, well then you aught not live where I live. Black snakes, while not all that attractive, do serve a purpose. They eat mice and small nesting birds. Where I live I have an abundance of mice. Whether it be mice who live in the field, those hanging out at the dog pen mooching the dog food or those that are finding their way into the house. 

The other day I came home and there on my lawn was a phantom snake, a very long snake skin, complete and translucent. Hmmm, I thought to myself...where is the snake. Hopefully not in my house.  The skin had my dogs, Winston and Samantha, puzzled. They stood there watching it expecting it to move. But it didn't. Samantha really made me laugh. She would get close to it and thinking it had moved would almost jump vertically off the ground. Winston on the other hand methodically circled the skin inspecting it fully with his nose.

I only saw snakes inside my house once. I remember that episode very clearly. I was in the shower and I heard a noise above the bathroom door. There I had a rectangular hole above the door for a "future" stained glass piece which would one day be backlit. I poked my head out of the shower and then I saw them. Two black snakes entwined together hanging over the doorway of the bathroom. I yelled for my dog Sam. Sam was about a year old and he came to the door and did nothing. What good are you I thought to myself. Then, butt-naked I ducked underneath the snakes and got a broom. Upon my return the snakes slithered back into the recess of my wall. Ugh. I then proceeded to duct tape plastic immediately over that hole and it has been there ever since.

I'm not sure how one can keep snakes out of an old farmhouse with all the cracks and crevices you can't see. The quarter inch space below the door, the holes in the stone foundation, the rodent tunnels leading from the yard to the crawlspace, the broken plaster holes in the wall and the clear openings under the side porch. I wonder if I went up into the attic how many skins I would see. I don't spend much time in the my cellar or my attic in the summer or fall for the likely prospect of running into a snake. I guess I try not to think about snakes inside my house all that much. For now I'll just follow that old saying, "Live and Let Live".