[Magdalen] Taking care of our neighbors in the yard

[Jay Weigel]

I went out on the lower porch about half an hour ago to take in the sun and
the breeze, and while I was there I noticed a black snake that seemed to be
caught in netting which S/O had  stapled around the corner post years ago
to assist the autumn clematis in its journey upward. Poor snake seemed to
be pretty thoroughly entangled, and knowing that these guys are not
venomous, I went and got S/O to have him look and see if there was anything
we could do. His first judgment was that the snake had expired, but when I
told him I'd seen it move, he got gloves, scissors, and a sawed-off broom
handle and proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes carefully snipping
netting and vine away from our scaly friend, which had got itself MOST
thoroughly entangled. I assisted by holding vines this way and that, and
the snake seemed to understand what we were doing and actually positioned
itself as much as it was able to so that S/O could reach netting that was
in between coils of its body. At last we managed to get it free, even
though we couldn't get all of the netting completely off it, and it crawled
off down the porch. I looked for it later and it was gone. S/O thinks it
may have gone down to the woodpile to rest and try to scratch the remaining
netting off. I'm just happy we found it and were able to free it. I am fond
of black snakes and I would hate for it to have died tangled in that
netting.