{"id":3779,"date":"2012-10-11T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allandouglas.com\/blog\/?p=3779"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:41","slug":"encounter-at-copperhead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/encounter-at-copperhead\/","title":{"rendered":"Encounter at Copperhead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here’s another creepy tail of adventure for Halloween month.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I had completed my morning gardening chores, made my mail run, had lunch, gotten the riding mower out and was starting my mowing when I spotted a snake crawling out of a hole in the underpinning (skirting) of my workshop – a mobile home that was on the property when we bought it and served as our home until we were able to build a house.<\/span> It looked a lot like a copperhead. Or at least what I remembered a copperhead to look like. But before I went into snake eradication mode I decided to do some fact checking: sometimes good snakes have coloring very similar to the bad snakes, and I don’t want to kill a King Snake because I mistook it for a viper.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Here is the snake from under the trailer:
\n\"\" And here is a picture of a copperhead from a snake eradication services web site:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"Yep, I\u2019d say that was a match. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So I got a couple of sturdy sticks and killed it. I know I shouldn’t – I should just relocate it to the forest, but I don’t have a snake stick made up, I’m not about to try to capture it in a box, and I know better than to try to encourage it to simply go elsewhere on it’s own. If I left it alone it might just go away – or it might go back under my workshop. Don’t like that thought, so I killed it. Or at least I crushed its head. Even after I\u2019ve completed the mowing and trimming with the push mower I came back by and saw that the body is still writhing about. I\u2019ll go get a shovel and behead it, but it\u2019s probably just autonomic \u2013 like a headless chicken running around for a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now the next logical thought is the question of whether that was a lone snake passing through or if there is a whole nest of those things under the shop. I\u2019m not going down there to find out. But we should be extra careful in the yard, especially around the lumber piles.
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When I converted the trailer from home to workshop and removed the kitchen and master bathroom cabinetry I found snake skins in the enclosed spaces under the cabinets. I suspect they crawled up around the drain pipes seeking a warm spot to winter and eat any mice that had been nesting there. With those cabinets removed, mice and snakes would have ready access to the interior of the shop. It think I\u2019ll get some Great Stuff foam sealant to shoot in those gaps around the standing pipes and seal them off.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I don\u2019t think snakes will be tempted to come inside here until fall, but I admit I just caught myself peeking under the desk before rolling my chair up to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Copperhead Facts<\/h2>\n

As long as we’re on the subject, let’s cover some facts and fiction, about this snake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fiction first:<\/span><\/p>\n