NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI DAILY JOURNAL (Tupelo, Mississippi) 30 April 08 Sharpening the shovel in preparation for reptile watch (Marty Russel)
I killed my first snake of the year this past Sunday, about an 8-inch water moccasin.
I figure with all the rain we've had lately the snakes are feeling more confident about leaving the pond and coming up the hill into my yard. Last year, with the drought we endured, I didn't even see a snake, much less terminate one.
Killing things is not something I enjoy. I've been known to herd poisonous spiders out of the house rather than kill them, and I currently have a small green lizard living in my bedroom. He's one the cats dragged in, batted around for a while until they got bored or spied something more interesting and then left the lizard inside.
He's a cute little thing that reminds me of the lizard on the Geico commercials, except this one doesn't have an Australian accent and doesn't try to sell me insurance. So I let him share the room. He doesn't do much except sit in the window and watch me go about my business anyway.
But snakes, at least the poisonous kind, are a different story. Even God said it was OK to smite serpents with our heels, but I'm not about to put my foot down on top of one of those things. Luckily, the Bible doesn't exclude using shovels or garden hoes to accomplish the task.
I don't abide poisonous snakes on my property because they cost me money. A few years back one of my cats got into a fight with a copperhead and lost, resulting in a vet bill of more than $100.
The cat survived but the snake refused to pay up and reimburse me for the bill so I introduced it to the pointy end of my shovel, and I've been doing the same with every poisonous snake I run across ever since.
I don't think snakes are evil or the devil personified as the Bible would have us believe. They're just dumb reptiles trying to survive like the rest of us. I say dumb because, if they were smart, they'd know better than to wander into a yard with three cats, two dogs and a shovel.
So now I'm on full-blown snake alert, at least until things dry up a little bit. That means walking around my yard like a severely depressed person with my head hung down, always looking at my feet and with my shovel always within arm's reach. Which reminds me, I think it needs sharpening.
Sharpening the shovel in preparation for reptile watch