[Magdalen] Taking care of our neighbors in the yard

[Susan Hagen]

I would never hurt a black snake but I would have an awful struggle to
approach one to free it.  I have spent all my life hiking, camping,
swimming and canoeing in areas that are richly occupied by snakes both
non-venomous and venomous.   I am very uncomfortable around snakes but
can suppress my discomfort when I have to.   The ones I am truly
terrified by are water moccasins which are quite aggressive and the
exception to the general rule of if you leave them alone they will
leave you alone.  The summer camp where I camped and later counseled
had them around the waterfront and I encountered my share.  Very
scary.


On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 1:15 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.



-- 
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among
you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the
land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:34