A Little Too Much Real Life

[cornerofmadness]

The bug lady was here to do the spring spraying today (roachs, another lovely part of living in Florida). She leans in the living room window to inform us we have a snake in the hibiscus. 'Is it Black?' SJ asks. 'Yep.' 'That's cool. He keeps out rats and other snakes' (our backyard abuts a county park so we have acres of woodlands and marshes behind us).

So, I go out and pick up all the branches that the wind has blown down so SJ can cut the grass only to find out our coachwhip is NOT keeping down the snakes. I look over and tryiing to get into the front door is another snake. I look closer to see if it's a king snake or the deadly coral (SJ lost a dog in Jan to a coral). Oh yeah, it's a coral.

Now I've gotten good at catching reptiles thanks to this eco-driven masters I'm doing. I've no trouble getting coaches or even gators. I know my nerve damaged hand is in no way fast enough to capture a coral and even if I did where would i put it? There are way too many young kids around and that park behind the house has too many hikers and kids in it.

I move him away from the door (long branches involved here). I go inside, 'SJ do we have a hoe? There's a coral snake as long as my arm outside.' (and it was. Corals don't get big. The one that killed the dog was this big too. They must love that park to be doing this well). Needless to say neither of us wanted to kill the snake but there was no other way. It's far too deadly to let live (and now all the Aussie's are laughing at me. Haha, corals can't even compare to the king browns and taipans). Long story short, the snake is unfortunately disposed of. What an exciting morning. It's not even 11:00 am yet.

Comments

[purple-smurf.livejournal.com]

and now all the Aussie's are laughing at me. Haha, corals can't even compare to the king browns and taipans

Guilty ;) I'm going through my f'list from the most recent to the older stuff -- normally I do it the other way around -- and so I've read Sharon's take on this already. And yeah, if we see a snake out at my grandparents or here? We kill it. 99% of them are aggressive as all hell, and all of them are deadly. There's black snakes, brown snakes, and tiger snakes there. The only ones we let live are the black snakes, because they eat the baby tigers. Black snakes are less aggressive than the tiger, who will attack you even if it doesn't feel threatened.

I don't like walking alone in the summer when I'm at my grandparents! And I always watch the trees, because they can climb *shudders* My grandparents don't let vines grow around their sheds any more, because snakes would climb the passionfruit vines and would setlle in with my grandfather's tools. Which is good, when you're reaching for a hammer and wind up with a tiger snake.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Like I said if I lived in Oz I'm sure I'd be far less complacent than I am here. the corals aren't as deadly as the taipans or the browns but they are in the top 10 I believe