Little Black Snake in my Bedroom

More snake-ness!!! love it.




Anddddd, Frank Zappa's Baby Snakes song....
LOL


XoxoxoXO

Grey Snake

MORE Snakkesss! Yesssss!
This is so cool. It's like a snake-a-thon out here the last two days. And all friendly snakes too, i think maybe it's a sign. Of what? I dont know.... but i could make up a buncha silly stuff it could mean.... and i am going to right now....
like :::

• Dont judge a snake just cause its a snake, look closely at it's nature/attitude
• I can find bunches of cool shit on my own (no need to lament aloneness making it harder to find bad ass stuff in nature.)
  
• sometimes you get what you wish for, especially if it is obscure and easy to deliver, like seeing snakes or lunar moths
• and if i think hard with my hippy mind.... i am SURE it means my kundilini is a' risen' (and i want to note here that spell check wanted to change "Kundilini" to "cunnilingus".)
  
• According to my "Animal Speaks" book.... it means Rebirth. That the snake represents swift fast changes and shifts, and healing... AKA, phoenix rising from the ash in fast forward! that is me!
  

YAY!
Is this a garter snake? I can't remember.
I love him regardless of his name though.
XOxXO

Brown Snake in the Barn

YAY! today i saw two more snakes when i went to put hay out for JuJu the donkey. Just when i was feeling sad about not seeing enough snakes, now three in 24 hours! I found this one slithering around the barn (the other one was too fast for me to take pictures of. Neither was as cute as the Ring Necked Snake, which totally has a smile.) :))
This snake was scared of me, wasn't too aggressive... but i could tell it was very willing to get aggressive if need be. I have seen copperheads who are much more shy then this little guy.
Various shades of brown, with a tan belly... and a pattern that really looks like we could play checkers on it. And those orange eyes!

Does anyone know the scientific name for this snake?
XoxooxOX

Little Friendly Snake (Ring Necked)

YAY! I havent seen a snake in forever. In fact, i was feeling a bit sad about the fact that there seemed to be no snakes around the Luck Cabin at all in spite of all the water & wilderness... i am not used to a snakelessness existence. I used to live in a house so full of snakes, it woulda made Indiana Jones's skin crawl (on the sofa, under the fax machine, on the kitchen counter, swinging from the front porch, hanging over the bed board!)

My cat Toots brought this little cute snake into my bedroom. I knew he was not poisonous, so i scooped him up and got a closer look at the cute little face... the slithering tongue, and made a friend.
A yellow belly, and grey skin.... and small yellow ring around it's neck - which give it it's simple namesake as the "ring neck snake". (makes it easy to remember that it doesnt pose a threat, they rarely bite.)
I have only seen really tiny ones, this one was actually the longest one i have ever held.
:)))) I like how its tail end curls and wiggles.
(of course, i spared this snake from my cat, and put it near a log pile outside to hide.)
XOxoXOOX

Animal Tracking: Itty Bitty Birdie Feet & Mystery Trail

Tiny bird tracks! Aren't they cute? There is a perfect area a little ways behind the Luck Cabin that is all muddy, mushy and bog like - many creeks branch and converge in this area making it a tiny wetland that attracts alot of animals & birds. The cool part is they all leave perfectly shaped tracks in the smooth wet silt.
This second track looks more like a slither... but I am not certain that it is a snake trail? The slither track is coming up out the water of the creek, in a spot that is shallow and slow moving.

What do you think it is? Can anyone give a positive ID on this meandering track...
Xoxox

Slitherin' Mania: Copperhead, Black Snake, and 6 ft Snake Skin

The snakes are back! Yesterday I was in Big Sandy Mush... me and Bort were talking about how we had not seen any snakes yet this year, which I guess summoned them from the depths cause not an hour later we had a snake fest.The first snake spotted was a copperhead under some thorny blackberry bushes on a concrete path that leads up to the Silo. It was sitting all coiled up and very alert. I did not feel as though the snake was at ease and I kept a good distance and left it alone. The eyes on this one actually look like they are made of metallic copper colored material - which is probably why Bort was utterly 'creeped out'- (understatement on his reaction to copperheads).
We also stumbled upon a large black snake warming itself in the woods on top my favorite tree. It had some unusual markings on it's side that we didn't know was from a fight/injury or if it was getting ready to shed it's skin... it slithered down the tree trunk and literally did a disappearing act (hole in the ground, hide under the bark, hole in the tree???) It slithered into the oblivion.
When Bort tried to show me another black snake that lives in his well house it wasn't in sight, but the skin it shed was hanging from the rafters and I pulled it down. It was split in two pieces (in the middle of the belly it had broke), but Bort held it together and the snake is about 6 feet LONG!
Not only that but the skin was fresh and new enough to have the head totally in tact! How cool is this??! Even the eyeball skin is on there!
I got to keep this snake skin and brought it home. It smells gross like an old fish, but I can't stop myself from loving it.
Xoxoxo'ssssssss

Small Grey Snake

I did not expect to see a snake in mid November! Usually they are hiding away from the cold, but it just has not been cold the last few weeks- and after more of days rain this snake came out into the morning sun to heat up his cold blooded body. It was a rather small snake and very well camoflauged into it's surroundings- so well in fact that i had no idea i was sitting about 8 inches from it, while i was scraping some sap off the bottom of a pine tree.
Look in the pic below and see if you can spot it?
It's scales were mainly a grey color but there were tan bits and a tan belly. It was highly alert about me being there, it's tongue never came out, it didn't move and it took one breathe to my every 5. Watching it breathe made me forget about everything in my life I think is important, the movement was mesmerizing & beautiful.
Does anyone know what kind of snake this is? It seems rather common here, especially near creeks and spring water.
XoXo

Skinning A Copperhead Snake

Before I get started on this project, I just want to say that this was my first time skinning a snake and was a learning process. I will link to more professional instructions at the bottom of this post.Last night my neighbor be-headed a copperhead snake - since I didn't find out till this afternoon I was not able to use the snake meat for eating but still wanted to take the opportunity to utilize the skin. Check out that length (that's me looking all haggard & averting my eyes while holding it by the tail) - not too bad for a male copperhead! Below is the process I followed to skinning the snake, if you have any experience or advice please feel free to chime in using the comments section.
REMINDER: * If you come in contact with a venomous snake DO NOT attempt to kill it, nearly all snake bites in America are due to people trying to kill the snake, the human may miss their mark but the snake never will. This instruction is not for killing snakes, but for using a snake already found dead either by hitting it in the road, having been killed by your pet, or hit by a mower, etc. Have respect for nature and don't kill what you don't need.*
STEP ONE: I laid the snake out on some clean paper, after having washed it off under running water. Snakes may carry salmonella so it's best to create an easy to clean surface before operating.
STEP TWO: This snake had been dead since the night before so it was probably a little more stiff then one freshly deceased. Most skinning instructions tell you to use a sharp knife, but there was no knife in my house sharp enough to cut with (and i tried them all), so I used hair cutting scissors. Scissors seem to be way easier with a cleaner cut.
The head was already chopped off this one, if yours still has a head chop it off. You then start from that chopped part of the neck and cut your way down to the tail following the middle of the belly. (The belly is the bottom soft part of the snake that it slithers on.) You are only cutting the skin, don't push your knife or scissors into the organs, especially if your snake is fresh and you want to eat the meat after. It's easy to see how to do this since the skin is somewhat loose to begin with.
STEP THREE: The copperhead had some fatty membrane stuff sticking to the skin. I took my knife and simply pushed through this membrane on both the right and left sides of the skin. This part was a little harder then I thought it would be, I had to really work it- plus get over touching tons of smelly slime. Once you get this sticky membrane loose on both sides, the skin will be ready to peal.
STEP FOUR: Peeling it is actually as easy as they say, I grabbed both the top right and left sides and just went ahead and pulled back. You may have to pull hard at first to get it going, but then it comes right off "just like a sock" or like "taking off pajamas", and any other weird analogy I heard about it. (See pics above and below.)

STEP FIVE: You are now left with the snake skin. Mine still had goo-y stuff at the very edges which I tried peeling and washing off under running water. I am not sure if this is correct but I could not seem to get it all off. What I read is the skin should be clean and have nothing on it anymore.
Up top is the outside of the copperhead skin, and below is what the inside of the skin looks like. Amazing how it's not pigmented on the inside- since that would not serve any purpose in nature.
LAST STEP: I pinned it to cardboard with straight pins and placed on top a warm dry surface. It's pinned backwards so you can see what it looks like, but I am told for it to dry best you pin the white side facing up and the pretty side down (the opposite of how it's pictured below)- then rub it with salt to preserve it.
If you want to know if I was grossed out, I can tell you this - holding a dead snake feels very strange, basically just like they feel when they are alive. You can feel every movement of the spine in your hands but it's not as slimy as it seems it would be. The snake had a slightly foul smell, but I think it was from the length of time that passed since it died. What I did to not feel queasy or sicked out while touching it, was not think any thoughts. :)

Read more on skinning snakes HERE. For skinning snakes to eat, go HERE.

XoXo

Garter Snake, Dark Brown With Yellow Stripes

I found this garter snake under a piece of wet cardboard when I was cleaning up outside this morning! We were both super surprised to see each other - the snake was really nervous and I suppose that's because they are one of the most harmless snakes you can possibly run into...it still can bite but it won't be one wrought with venom. This one just stuck it's tongue out at me a few times before quickly slithering off into the tall grass.
Now here's a fun fact that I actually guessed before I found the answer - the word garter was chosen to describe the snake because someone (I bet a man) along the way thought the two long stripes up the snakes skin resembled the women's article of clothing that kept her stockings up, or nowadays accents some saucy lingerie. Pretty awesome.
XoXo