Snake: The Anniversary Gift

July 1, 2014 a little after 6:00 p.m. Mary were sitting on our deck recollecting our first year anniversary week of owning the cabin. A glass of wine in hand and a pretty much perfect late warm afternoon.  As I was later to reflect, I think Mother Nature had planned a special cabin anniversary gift from which I would learn a lesson or two.

The gift suddenly appeared not ten feet off the deck.  A SNAKE!! Our first snake sighting....And it was a BIG one, at least five feet long.  Panic quickly set in!  What kind of snake was this?  Was it a rattlesnake?  Couldn't see a rattle, but rattles sometimes fall off.  Snapped a couple of pictures and quickly went to the local plant and animal book and turned to the snake section.  Didn't seem like a rattler.  Maybe a Pacific Gopher Snake. The Pacific Gopher Snake has a characteristic dark "tear drop" feature below the eye. Using binoculars up close is not ideal, but it certainly looks like a "tear drop".  Reading further, much to my relief, if it is a Pacific Gopher Snake, it is not poisonous.  Time for a closer look.  I slowly crept up closer, but not too close and confirmed the tear drop and other features to determine that this was a harmless Pacific Gopher Snake.  The eat mice and other rodents and salamanders.

We watched the creepy and eerie sight of it almost standing up and made short work of the climb up the retaining wall.

It finished its climb over the wall and we watched it settle in "frozen" in front of one of our salamander holes.

We kind of enjoy watching the salamanders scurry about at seemingly tremendous speeds and we were not in the mood for watching this "Rodent Removal Service" have a salamander dinner right before our eyes.  Thus it was determined after about two nano second discussion, the snake had to go.  But how?  I hate snakes and didn't want to do get any closer. "Let's just watch it and see if it disappears" I suggested.  Mmmmm, not an option.  Furthermore, I never had any intention of killing a harmless snake, especially since it was a gift from Mother Nature.

Okay, figured out the solution.  Nearby was a stick about four feet long, with a "Y" at the end. I figured I could catch the snake mid-length  in the "Y" and then simply carry it off.  This is what I did.

I have always assumed that snakes are kinda dumb and certainly couldn't learn.

Well, I grabbed the snake as planned, as the picture attests.  But, after the initial pick-up, I made it about 20 or 30 yards and the thing figured out it could crawl off the "Y" and landed softly on the sandy ground.  With encouragement from afar, I needed to take the snake further away.

Taking "Gift" Far Away

 I once again picked it up and headed out further.  This second time, I only made it maybe 10 yards and it crawled off.  The third time, it had crawled off before I could get but a few steps.  I then figured I would grab him into the "Y" closer to the head, instead of mid-length.  This worked better and made it a little further.  I was to do this several more times, but with each successive try, the snake more quickly climbed off.  On my last try, the snake figured climbing off the stick was not working so he decided to climb the stick in the direction of ME!

Well, as I saw his snake EYES and TONGUE getting closer, I figured we were far enough from the cabin and quickly let him down.

As I retreated, I saw he was slowly heading away from the cabin which was perfect for me.

Now this is hoped to be an SDS day of ONE!  Haven't Seen another Pacific Gopher Snake yet, but there would be other snake encounters this week.