A week or so ago RT was using his bulldozer to clean up some of the large rocks between our house and the barn.  When he moved one rock, he found six white eggs under it.  We looked at the eggs - they were just a tad smaller than a hen’s egg - and figured they were probably turtle eggs.  In retrospect, I don’t know how a turtle would have dug underneath an enormous rock to lay the eggs, but who knows?

So RT put some dirt in a bucket, placed the eggs in there and then put more dirt on top.   Then he set the bucket next to the barn where it wouldn’t be disturbed.  We then promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to Saturday.  The guys doing some trimwork in the house asked me, “Why do you have a bucket of snakes by the barn?”  (Now WHY they were snooping around by the barn is another matter.)

“A bucket of snakes?  What do you mean?”

They showed me, and it dawned on me what had happened.  We had helped a half dozen snakes hatch!  They had triangular patterns on their backs - and they were aggressive!  Of course we were using a stick to move them around to try to count how many there were.  So maybe they were just irritated about being poked.

I voted for killing them all.  But RT insisted on setting them free.  When he reached for the bucket, one of the snakes sprang up - trying to strike at him.  I mean it literally sprang straight upward.  Now these are BABY snakes - maybe 10 inches long.  However, they weren’t the least bit passive about being disturbed.

Over my protests, RT took the bucket and dumped it out over to the side of the barn.  One of the snakes coiled up, and I SWEAR its tail was vibrating up in the air like a rattler.  The tail was a blur from vibrating so fast.  Of course it was too young to have any rattles, BUT it sure looked like a rattler rattling its tail.   That, plus the one who sprang up at RT convinced me that we had just released six rattlesnakes in our yard.

Now RT says anytime we find a snake on the property, I’ll blame him.   Even without the 6 baby snakes, there would still be the mama and papa snake around.  I still say he should have killed them all.  I don’t know for sure, but what if they really ARE rattlers?  The eggs were found under a rock - and that’s the type of habitat for rattlers.

I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture of the bucket of snakes before RT set them free.  But just the ideas of so many venomous snakes roaming around my new yard.  YIKES! 

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm and is filed under RT/PawPaw, That's My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.