| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| miss wilma |
Posted - Dec 15 2007 : 9:49:50 PM
Do any of you girls out there have snakes around your property? Well a few years ago we had an old out building that must have been here since adam and eve,So when I decided to build my sewing house we had to tear the old building down,in all the years we had lived here I had never seen but one BIG snake, All of a sudden the following year I got the pleasure of chopping off 7 BIG snakes, they evidently came from the old building, now there are a few things in life that I cant tolerate, Snakes, mice , rats and lady bugs and flies. Sterl tells me I shouldnt kill those old black snakes but figure I can have a heart attack from a black snake as quick as a copperhead so off comes their head , I have never had a snake come in my house but today a bunch of us women were down at the shop and the subject of snakes came up Hannah told us a story about when they lived at the cabin and they were sitting in the room where the fireplace was when she just happened to glance up and saw this BIG snake coming thru a crack around the stones WELL I REACON SHE NEAR HAD A BAD ACCIDENT , So what I am wondering have any of you ever had asnake in your house and how would you get it out of your house, There is no way I want to go to sleep if I thought one was in my house Miss Wilma
I am a farm girl married to a sewing machine
http://misswilma.blogspot.com/ |
| 25 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| miss wilma |
Posted - Dec 24 2007 : 1:51:26 PM
What ever happened to all the little green snakes, we used to see them in fence rows but I havent seen one for years, when we were little they told us if they bit you, you would laugh yourself to death, now I know that had to be hillbilly yarn. Miss Wilma
I am a farm girl married to a sewing machine
http://misswilma.blogspot.com/ |
| nut4fabric |
Posted - Dec 24 2007 : 09:03:04 AM
I will still kill a rattler when I see one!
Kathy |
| lmillward |
Posted - Dec 23 2007 : 10:44:50 PM
As a career naturalist and someone who studies snakes (among other reptiles) and has lived on a farm for most of my life I can tell you that the only reason you may have snakes is because there are vermin around for them to eat. A snake will not live anywhere unless there is an abundant food supply. Often people are afraid of snakes (which carry no diseases) and kill them only to discover that they have rodents (which do carry disease). In my studies I have discovered that everyone has a "snake story" but most turn out to be highly exaggerated. many people are unaware that several snakes mimic "dangerous" animals like rattlers or copperheads. Unfortunately, they do it so well that it often gets them killed.
Now, I'm not sayin you have to like them- my dad hated them but that didnt stop me from gathering them up in jars every time we irrigated! There is something to be said, however, for learning about how all creatures in nature depend on one another.
Long live the weeds and the wildflowers! ~John Muir |
| mikesgirl |
Posted - Dec 23 2007 : 1:46:13 PM
I saw some snake repellent at Home Depot - I'm not sure if that was the name - but I'm curious too if it works.
Farmgirl Sister #98 |
| peggysue |
Posted - Dec 23 2007 : 1:44:20 PM
i do not like snakes....when i was a little girl, we lived on a hill affectionately called "copperhead mountain" for a while, the name definitely fit the spot, we always had copperheads in the house... i remember one getting under my bed..luckily mom and dad got it out before it got on the bed
Life is too short to be narrow minded. |
| farmgirl blessings |
Posted - Dec 23 2007 : 1:16:32 PM
Has anyone heard of "snake be gone"?
Blessings, Lea
www.farmhouseblessings.blogspot.com
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot |
| nut4fabric |
Posted - Dec 23 2007 : 11:51:17 AM
Now I am a nature lover but I HATE snakes!!!! For several years we lived in a very rural area that was full of everything that crawled or slithered and I kept my pistol loaded with Snakeshot and wasn't afraid to use it. Two of our dogs were bitten by rattlers and we even had one in the garage once. Nasty Nasty. The neighbors had a garter snake that lived in their garden and I didn't like him either.
Kathy |
| AFMom |
Posted - Dec 23 2007 : 09:29:57 AM
Hi gals,
Well this topic has been so interesting that I decided to jump right in....I don't like snakes, mice, rats, bugs etc...but I love the country...go figure..you can't have one without the other...anyway, my most frightening episode with a snake is not even from here in the US but when we were stationed in Japan.
We had just moved into our house on base and it was summer. I was having a problem with ants in my living room and they were biting my little girl. We didn't have our household goods yet, so she was busy alot on the floor. Anyway, I got some bug spray for outside and decided that I would spray along the perimiter of the back patio. The grass was very high off the patio due to the house being vacant and we didn't have our lawn mower yet. As I was spraying, I heard a hiss from behind me and turned and this 5 foot snake was coming for me with his mouth open and slithering to beat the band. I screamed bloody-blue-murder and rapidly went back in the house. My neighbor heard me scream and came over to see if I was ok and I showed her the snake. We called the entomolgy office on base and they sent 2 Japanese men over to capture him. He never left my yard the entire time we were waiting...I had definatly upset him by invading his territory. So they arrived and went to get him and freaked because he was a rare poisnous snake from southern Japan and should have not even been in the Northern part of the country...it is amazing he was alive. The snake constantly tried to attack the men..it was quite aggressive, so they killed it. He was almost 5 ft long stretched out and I am only 4 feet 9 inches so you get the idea of how big he was compared to me. Later my husband told me that the Entomolgy guys did confirm he was from the Okinawa area and someone must have brought him up to our area in Northern Japan as a pet, but couldn't control him so they let him go. I always have the craziest stuff happen to me with the animals I dislike the most. Erica:) |
| miss wilma |
Posted - Dec 22 2007 : 12:33:26 PM
lea they say black snakes keep other things away but I dont want any of them, We dont have the poison ones here but a snake is like a rat, death to them. My friend from Atlanta had a python in her fence row, She had the animal people out but he couldnt be caught. I dont belirve I could have went out the door, He was there until last year but has since vanished. Miss Wilma
I am a farm girl married to a sewing machine
http://misswilma.blogspot.com/ |
| farmgirl blessings |
Posted - Dec 20 2007 : 1:45:18 PM
Miss Wilma and fellow farmgirls,
I have not read anything so funny in a long, long time. My eyes are teary!
I don't like snakes either though I do tolerate the black ones if they stay a good distance from the house. I was told they keep the copperheads away which live in abundance here, so I'd rather have them than a poisonous one. We've had to kill 4 coppers this year.
Well here is our snake story:
I live in a home with 4 boys all in various stages of development so we have an assortment of rubber toys ... including snakes. One afternoon I was picking up the house and there in the floor the boys had left one of their rubber snakes. I went over to grab it and it raised its head and darted at me. It was real! I screamed like there was no tomorrow and ran and got on top of the kitchen table where I yelled and cried until my oldest son came in and removed the thing.
That old thing had crawled into the newpaper bag that had been delivered on the front porch and I had brought it right into the house. I cancelled the newpaper subscription and now pick mine up at the local market. Still gives me shivers to think about it! And the plastic snakes are gone too!
Blessings, Lea
www.farmhouseblessings.blogspot.com
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot |
| Shirley |
Posted - Dec 20 2007 : 12:48:27 PM
OH my gosh, and thats not what I would usually say.
Ive never liked snakes, and am still glad I live in a unsnake place, except for gardner snakes, and they arent usually around our place.BECAUSE they know they better not be, or else.
You all keep your snakes. and in the house, I wouldnt go back in the house either until it was de snakes. cause where theres one theres more. LOL
Shirley |
| country lawyer |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 1:13:11 PM
Freaking out from all of these stories! Snake phobic here!
Someone recently told me that Garrison Keller said that sooner or later all conversations in the south get around to talking about snakes. I thought that was hilarious because I do indeed talk about them a lot.
Let me add this one to the stew.
My uncle lived in the mountains of NC. He lived in an old, old farmhouse. He woke up to a long black snake in the bed with him, on top of the covers. I could NEVER EVER sleep in that house after I learned about that. No matter that it happened a milllion years ago!
That, and I gardened with a family of them before we moved. Miss the garden. Don't miss the snakes. |
| miss wilma |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 1:06:56 PM
Joy I dont know if you hear much London news or not but there is a law suit going on there now from a woman being bitten last summer. She died, then the husband who had always preached it was wrong to sue people, has the hospital sued for not taking care of her right, It was in the paper when I went home. Yes there is still a lot of snake handling goes on down there Miss WILMA
I am a farm girl married to a sewing machine
http://misswilma.blogspot.com/ |
| downbranchroad |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 12:59:38 PM
Jonni,
The meetin I went to, was in the mid 1970's! Yep, right here in Southern KY, some 30 odd years ago! Don't here of that takin place here anymore. But there is still a lot of churches out in these mountains and hollars' and who knows?
Appalachian Girl Jem |
| miss wilma |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 12:12:57 PM
Girl a good hoe and a small pkg of just one bite will take care of both of them I havent found a way to get rid of spiders but I am terrfied of them, I was bitten by a brown recluse several years ago and still have scars from it.Any way I have no rocks closer than probaly 20 feet of my house The air holes are plugged to conserve heat so I am not going to worry that one might be crawling around Any way I think they hibernate for the winter, So if they are brave enough to come back in the spring I will waiting Miss Wilma
I am a farm girl married to a sewing machine
http://misswilma.blogspot.com/ |
| Peanut |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 10:01:32 AM
We have a blacksnake on the farm... "Blackie" (so original!). I love him because he takes care of a lot of the mice. I hate mice wayyyy more than a snake.
"What is a farm but a mute gospel?"
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 09:48:09 AM
That's really fascinating to me, the serpent handling in churches...like I mentioned before, my Nanny took my dad all over to those meetings in the 20's and 30's in rural Louisiana and Arkansas....aside from that, I think his fear of snakes came from being raised by his two grandmothers after Nanny abandoned him...they made him pick blackberries and boy howdy do those snakes like those blackberry bushes!!! He also tells a tale of driving a horse trailer up old 25 (from Florida)in 1940, with a groomer and they pulled over to take a nap somewhere in the hottest part of the afternoon. The left the doors to the truck open, and when he dreamily awoke, there was a BIG rattle snake stretched out, sunning himself in the crevice where the dashboard meets the windshield. Dad said he musta run 4 miles before his companion caught up with him!!!!
Farmgirl Sister #80, thanks to a very special farmgirl from the Bluegrass..."She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian.
http://www.buyhandmade.org/ |
| downbranchroad |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 09:22:51 AM
Well girls, I grew up on a farm here in Southern KY and seein a snake is no big deal for me. Now a big ole spider, is another story.
Not long after we moved to Slickford they had a Holy Ghost Revival that lasted weeks. Well, one night I was invited by a friend from up on the creek to go to the "meeting" that night,and I thought gosh they must be having real good meetins for it to have lasted weeks. So I went. Well folks, they had snakes, BIGGINS! Although snakes dont scare me in the least, I dont want to be in a church meetin where they are draggin them things out and jumping around with them. The revival lasted another week or so but needless to say I didnt feel the need to go. Dont think I ever went back there.
Appalachian Girl Jem |
| catscharm74 |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 09:08:43 AM
Oh Jonni!! I can see that mouse....cracking me up!!!
Cheers,
Heather |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 09:03:18 AM
I'm trying to find the photo of the "guy" that my husband took in the early Springtime. We emailed it to the extension service at UK, and he replied that I had a "very handsome black rat snake, who is VERY beneficial"...so, we let him be. I don't mind if he eats what he eats, and I belive that's rodents, etc...
Oh!!! Here is he is!
Another view
I don't mind mice...I have 3 cats (and they don't seem to mind them either  )...Funny mouse story...I was in my kitchen, getting ready to prepare dinner and I noted our gray long haired cat, Stooka, hanging out and opening up the lower cabinets with her paw. "Must be a mouse" I thought, as I went about my business...After a while, she was WAY too much underfoot, so I shooed her out. I had just been given a lovely large, globulal vase of sunflowers, and I had taken them out to do a fresh cut on the stems, so all that was remaining was this large, globe-like vase of water. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something small move quickly in the direction of the vase...a few seconds later, I retreated from the kichen in haste, because whatever "it" was, was standing behind the vase, and maginified ten times by the globe vase and water!!!!!!! Turns out, it was just a field mouse with a HYSTERICAL sense of humor!!!!!
Farmgirl Sister #80, thanks to a very special farmgirl from the Bluegrass..."She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian.
http://www.buyhandmade.org/ |
| Annab |
Posted - Dec 17 2007 : 03:47:02 AM
So what's worse, snakes or vermine and disease??
I get a start every time there's one in the chicken coop. It's more anoying than scary. But then again, I'm the animal person, so not a whole lot makes me scream and stand on a chair like a little girl.
However, I too have limitations and really don't care to come across big roaches and cetipedes. And as for those lady bugs. The real ones know better than to come into my house. And the foreign ones get flushed or gently squished just the same.
We have had 4 snakes under the house. Figure they were there for overwintering. One gave our plumber a bad start.
If there were one in the house I wouldn't be able to rest either. Something about wakig up with one un the bed with you trying to get warm!
And remember, ifyou do have the hudzpah to just remove snakes and not kill them, they keep a home range for a mile or so. So keep walking. However , the vacancy just makes room for more to take up residence. |
| kissmekate |
Posted - Dec 16 2007 : 9:41:52 PM
Frannie,
I love your Jake the Snake story. I have tears running down my face from laughing.
When I was a kid we had snakes in our house. Garter snakes that would sneak in. Terrified the heck out of me. I still am scared of snakes. My Mom used to have to shake out her loads of laundry from the dryer, they would sneak in through the exhaust. (for the heat)
When I was in kindergarten, I was getting ready to go to school. I went into my room to get my shoes and there was a snake curled right up, all cozy like next to my shoes. I missed school that day because Mom and I weren't going to "wrestle" that snake for my shoes. LOL
The neighbor came over later to get him and shoo him outside.
If I recall, something with peanut butter outside the house got rid of them. Evidently they don't like it.
That and there were more homes built in the neighborhood, so that helped too.
Don't miss out on a blessing, just because it isn't packaged the way you expected. ~MaryJo Copeland |
| shawna |
Posted - Dec 16 2007 : 9:07:40 PM
i can't even look at the tv when a snake is on, make me feel sick, yuck, yuck, yuck!!!
xoxxo MERRY CHRISTMAS xoxxo |
| Shirlaroo |
Posted - Dec 16 2007 : 6:27:55 PM
I had a little green tree snake come in the house when I was just about ready to burst with child! It was the summer time and I was cooling off with just my nickers on. It scared the willies out of me, I was alone. I sat purched on the back of the lounge until I was brave enough to hop down and get the broom to chase him out. It must have looked funny. A naked pregnant woman chasing a snake with a broom.
Friends are the best collectables. |
| CabinCreek-Kentucky |
Posted - Dec 16 2007 : 4:53:28 PM
miz carol ... whoops .. i get to typin' without lookin' ... usually in ALL 'lower' caps .. but sometimes in 'upper' .. i've jus' never seen it as 'yelling' .. more as 'enthusiasm'. i don't look at the page when i type usually .. and if i've typed something 'long' .. i usually don't go back and re-do it.
True Friends * Frannie
HEAR MY STORIES
come, visit my:
"GATHERING ROOM" ..
http://freedomvalleyfarm.blogspot.com
adopt a 'rag-chile'
http://sistermercysfoundlinhome.blogspot.com
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http://africathroughmyeyesandheart.blogspot.com
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