Year of the Snake

If only the snakes were like the little Black Racer in my garage. Him I talked to.

But Copperheads, whose bite can make you lose a leg? In 7 years in the country, I have had 3 encounters with them too close for comfort (on the steps, in the yard, in the garden). Now, I've shot three right by the house or in the garden, plus another right beside the house we restored in Buckingham County.  And one of our livestock dogs was bitten, and though she made an excellent recovery, that means one more venomous snake is in the vicinity.

I have what a friend calls an "atavistic" reaction to snakes: I really dislike them. Unlike a neighbor who slays every one he meets, however, I understand that snakes keep down the rodent population.

Our solution to this population explosion (maybe from a very large snake that eluded me last year, in our butterbeans) has involved cutting the grass short, going out at night with powerful flashlights, and using snake repellent around the house. A snubnose revolver stays on the hip, full of snake shot, when I'm weed whacking or clearing garden beds.

The flashlights saved us one evening, when checking the chicken coops. A young Copperhead showed up in the beam, coiled up right in front of us. I shot it with a revolver at 15', using snake shot. I kept thinking "just five paces more and it would be time for the emergency room and a painful recovery."

Snake repellents are controversial. One widely available one, Snake Away, contains Napthaline, a carcinogen (read the EPA's page before the Trump Administration orders them to declare it safe). It smells like moth balls and I will not link to it or encourage you to buy it. We have used it sparingly, mostly to get rid of what we have on hand, and nowhere near food or animals. There's a video of tests with Rattlesnakes, who were not excited or prodded, moving casually over the product. It was an utter failure. The snakes also did not mind mothballs, crawling right over them to find a shady spot.

My go-to is Snake Stopper, an organic product far safer but also more expensive and short-lasting. The effectiveness of both products gets questioned by bloggers. That said, the hardware store does not sell spare legs.

Ortho makes a natural product called Snake Be Gone. That may be promising as it has longer-lasting crystals.

In the end, I'm not sure we'll know if they work. When I was using Snake Away regularly after my first near bite in 2016, I saw no snakes for a while. But was it the product or the weather? This year, without an April freeze, snakes emerged in did not perish as they often do in other years. And we did not have a wet, cool winter. That, some old-timers claim, causes a fungus that kills snakes.

Whatever the prognosis, the chickens have to be checked after dark. So what to do? Lights and slow walking. Be careful out there! And above all, do you know how to identify venomous snakes? Virginians might start here. Check your state's extension agency for a similar page.

Snakes have a long association with healing, rebirth, and immortality. I'll let the mystics judge that, and welcome harmless snakes into my yard and garden. I have a tetanus shot.