Posted on 08/30/2007 8:30:10 AM PDT by SmithL
I think coral snakes are on the top ten list of most venomous.
Absolutely not something to be messed with.
It's hard to tell the difference between the Florida coral and the non poisonous King snake.
They are basically colored identically but the colors are separated slightly.
I was gonna offer to suck out the venom...
but not her foot!!
We lived in Palatka (sp) Fla. when I was young, my younger brother and sister were born there.
Mom said my older brother was playing with a coral snake when we lived there. She made him put it down, later found out what it was. Fortunately he didn’t get bit.
I have three brothers, two of which loved to play with snakes when they were kids. My brother, one year younger than me, had one in our storage room (attached to the house) when I was a kid (don’t know what kind, he didn’t tell anybody he had it). I picked up a (supposedly empty) canning jar Mom had there, moved it to look for something, and there was that snake in it. I dropped the jar, which shattered (got out of there quick), and the snake was never found.
That brother was always doing stuff like that. It was pretty harrowing being his sister.
What part of Tennessee are you from?
You deal with the venom, I’ll start CPR.
East Tennessee :)
You know what my first thought was, though? I wondered if this was a "competitive to the death Texas Cheerleader" situation where a competitor threw a snake on her while she was sleeping!
I'm more a-skeered of City Gals than I am of snakes; they fight dirty, LOL!
LOL. Be careful out there gathering that corn for the hens.
I think about copperheads every time I go into my little garden. They are pretty camoflagued in the landscape here. At least you can hear a rattler before it strikes. However, my two dogs pretty much keep everything cleared out of my yard here.
I ain’t too worried about them city girls, heck they would be a skeered of breaking a fingernail. Can you imagine trying to thread a “night crawler,” what we call big earthworms here, on the end of a hook with them long artificial fingernails?
Well, that explains it!
Tennessee has three grand divisions, three separate states, to hear us locals tell it :)
West Tennessee is basically Mississippi in disguise.
Middle Tennessee is nice, but ain’t east Tennessee.
East Tennessee is God’s country.
Ducking now Grammy (grin).
Let’s see...timber rattlers, copperheads, and cottonmouths...I would say that’s a definite yes.
"A little one, garden snake, but it still freaked me out Ewwww"
You weenie!! LOL a little bitty garden snake scared you? You'd think you were a city gal! I have killed, personally, a number of poisonous snakes right here in my woods. Several have been shot, one cut up with a hoe, and if I am driving, they are stomped with my car. Rattlers will get as big as your arm if they have any age on them.
Mr G's brother was always getting into trouble with snakes. As about a 12 year old, he started hollering for his dad to come quick. He had a rattlesnake pinned down with a forked stick and wanted help catching it. Another time he ran out of meal worms for his snake so he decided to induce hibernation..... and set it in the fridge.
In my head I can hear his mother's scream to this day, and I was still at least 15 years away from meeting the family.
“Rattlers will get as big as your arm if they have any age on them.”
And here I was thinking about asking to visit you (grin).
Yes, Middle Tennessee has some of the most beautiful spots in the state. And wonderful people too.
Okay, I take it back. I love ALL of Tennessee. I especially love the people in west Tennessee, they are the salt of the earth, the kindest, most down to earth people I’ve ever encountered. But, I have to at least have hills, if not mountains, complete with snakes.
BTW, while touring Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee in the mid 1990s, on an airboat, we saw a cottonmouth snake. I had seen cottonmouths in Lousiana while living there, but thought I had outrun them when I moved back to Tennessee. Those are some creepy snakes, when you see lots of them floating (with their white mouths open) where you had planned to go fishing.
I can somehow see Mr G’s family members playing with snakes, knowing some of the adventures they’ve sought. Now I have a pic in my mind of you screaming at the top of your lungs at Mr. G’s brother’s pet snake.
Some folks over here on the east Tennessee/Kentucky border still play with snakes, only they do so on Sunday while in church (seriously, we have snake handling churches up here in my neck of the woods).
East Tennessee is the REAL Tennessee :))
LOL. I think we may have freeped about this before.
I have spent too many hours on FR (when I should have been working) and had too many pings to remember them all.
I don’t suppose I ever told you the story about the snake handling preacher up in this area that got busted by the state wildlife agency for having more than 100 poisonous snakes in his freezer (nah, I don’t repeat myself). When he wasn’t preachin’ he was poaching bears. That’s what got him busted, he got caught poaching bears.
When they went to his property to inspect it for bear parts they found the frozen snakes.
See, killing a copperhead or rattler is unlawful here now, since they are on the threatened species list (it’s true, although unbelievable, check it out). The wildlife agency doesn’t really enforce this hard, or they’d have hillbillies shooting them. If a snake threatens you and you whack it nobody knows, or cares. But if you get caught with more than 100 of them (when you just happened to be in trouble for bear poaching and selling the parts, a federal offense, then you are in some deep do do).
This old snake handling preacher didn’t quite trust his faith enough to be tested on live snakes, so he froze his, then thawed ‘em out when he was testing the faith of his flock of believers.
It’s a true story.
Eastern diamondbacks are the biggies. The west coast ones get respectable, but I’ve seen them back east over 5 feet long.
All in all, though, they’re pretty reclusive.
Hey now, that's wasn't me screaming, that was mother in law G screaming. I am not afraid of snakes, as I also had a brother who raised them. In fact, we had a six foot black snake stretched out on the porch of the office that I shooed off. He gets to live because he eats rattlers.
Now that other....spider thread I pinged you to....... ewwwwwww!
I missed killing one that was over 6 feet long. He went off into the woods, down a steep hill (and I wasn't willing to chase him on his territory) while I went for the shotgun. The last one we killed was sleeping off the edge of the porch, between us and our cars. It was a fatal mistake. He was over 4 feet long and I was really surprised how heavy he was. I can't remember for sure, but I think he had 5 or 6 rattles.
You are right though, they don't like people and tend to avoid the activity that goes on around the house.
One of the things I love most about Hawaii! No snakes, poisonous or otherwise. Unless someone smuggles one in or if one hitches a ride in from Guam on an Air Force jet.
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