Into Every Homestead a Little Snake Must Fall

 As some of you may know, Old Head has a severe aversion to snakes. To say he doesn't like snakes would be putting it ridiculously, incredibly, horrendously mildly. However, as some of you may know, Aspirin Acres is located next to a swamp. Well, actually part of Aspirin Acres IS the swamp. (yeah, I know, Google calls it a "lake", but really, until we get the Tilapia out there and about three months of cleaning with a lake rake, it will continue to be a swamp.) So you can expect that Old Head gets the opportunity to face his fear on a pretty regular basis.

The first snake he encountered on this property was an unidentified critter that soon became completely unidentifiable after we saw him slithering across the driveway towards the house. He yelled out to the neighbor to join him on the hunt and then, like a ninja, he grabbed a hoe and a shovel and went to slicing and dicing with his Gin-Su-Hoe-moves. I don't know that they taught him this particular move in Tai Chi or in Shaolin classes, but he made short work of a long snake in no time.

The next encounter was one that would burn a hole in our mind's eye. The aforementioned neighbor had a beautiful black lab that loved to swim in the (e-hem) lake. On this day there was also a very large amazonian-type of black-ish colored snake also swimming in the (e-hem) lake. Well, you can imagine that a very large black lab who loves his family would immediately see it as a threat and begin to bark snarl and chase it through the weeds. After calling him several times and having him run back and forth a few times, he finally gave up and let the snake go off on its own.

There have been water mocassins, (which never ends well for the snake) and some other unidentified things. Sometimes it's an encounter, sometimes the encounter becomes a slaying, but Old Head is slowly but surely coming to grips with the fact that snakes are going to be a part of homestead life.

There is a yellow rat snake that roams the property, occasionally bumping into Old Head. They look at each other and the snake gently moves out of his way. This one stays because he is productive, anything that kills rats is welcome on this homestead. (Well, unless it's a poisonous snake, or something that looks like one - then it doesn't matter what he has on his hunting resume.)

The latest addition to our list of snake breed (do they call them breeds?) is a Florida Ringneck - found in an old bucket out back. He was hiding in the corner, under a few leaves when Old Head found him (or maybe her, we can't tell.) And Old Head decided that since it was obvious that he will be encountering snakes often, he was going to face and conquer his fears once and for all.  So he reached in the bucket and pulled out the snake and asked for a container.

We investigated - via internet research and calling a few snake "experts" to find out what it was to make sure it wasn't poisonous. Since it wasn't we decided to keep it.

Introducing the newest addition (temporarily in captivity so that Old Head can pick it up and get used to handling them) to the homestead.....

Ringo!

The Florida Ringneck Snake

From what we have discovered, he (or she) is about as big as it's gonna get. They grow to be about 6- to 10-inches long. They are black with an orange ring around their neck that extends down to their belly and turns bright red as it reaches their tail.

Photo: Fiona Sunquist  http://www.wildflorida.com/wildlife/snakes/Ringneck_Snake.php

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