Saturday Night Fun with Snakes!

“The only good snake, is a dead snake.”

With a bag of luggage in one hand and a backpack slug over my shoulder, I stepped into the moist grass about 10:10pm Saturday night. Before taking my next step, a copperhead slithered away from my sandal clad foot. Much to my surprise, I found a second copperhead, but bigger.

Pardon the interruption, but I think it is necessary for me to tell you at this point that I hate snakes.

I grabbed a near by shovel and threw the bags on the porch. At some point, I hollered at Kari and she moved the bags inside and joined me in the panic stricken snake hunt.* After a few attempts with the shovel Kari and I did nothing but scare them into hiding. Kari decided to get the guns out, she ran inside to grab and load the guns. I stayed outside and spotted a small one hidden in the bushes. I quickly and accurately chopped the head off with the shovel. Kari and her mother, Ruth, came outside with a .22 caliber. Ruth recently broke her ankle, but was limping around outside ready to fire on anything that slithered. Our search came to an end about twenty minutes later leaving us with one dead copperhead.

We said our goodbyes and grabbed our bags to head home. As we walked to the car, Kari spotted a second copperhead wrapped up near a small tree. We dropped the bags inside again and grabbed the shovel. Copperhead number two lost his head. This snake was small, so it seemed there was one bigger copperhead in the area. We turned the headlights on and searched the bushes and grass around the porch. Kari spotted a tail, “There is it!” she exclaimed. I didn’t see the snake, but she kept her eye on him. I ran in the house and grabbed the .22. At some point, Kari lost sight of the third snake.

We searched for about 10 minutes to no avail, but before we gave up Ruth shined the flashlight into the tree and there he sat on a tree limb about 15 feet above our heads. He had been watching us search the bushes for a while it seemed, but this gave us an advantage. Bullets were loaded and Ruth wanted the first shot. ‘Blam!’ Her first shot missed. I volunteered to go next, loaded the bullet into the chamber and aimed for what I thought was his head. ‘Blam!’ He fell to the sidewalk and Kari took the shovel to his head. I didn’t hit him in the head, but he took a body shot that made him fly to the ground. Copperhead number three, dead!

That was enough snake killing for the evening, so we grabbed our stuff, loaded up and headed home. It was an unexpected close to a Saturday evening. Oh, did I mention, I hate snakes.

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. God bless.

*This order of events is sketchy, due to my fear of snakes!