Monday, March 16, 2009

A Snake in the Grass

It was a lovely afternoon and the temperature shot up to 88 degrees in my neck of the woods. I was sitting outside on the curb of my driveway with my feet in the grass, watching the dogs play. Then I noticed there were two lizards on a nearby tree. One was only a few inches long and blended well with the tree bark. The other was very colorful and at least seven inches. They both appeared to be watching me, which I thought was rather odd.

Suddenly my cat was beside me, creeping as if in attack mode. I assumed he was going after the lizards, so I held him back and told him to leave my friends alone. Instead, he continued to push forward, even struggling with me. He is a very large cat and as I turned to grab him with both hands he broke free and took a leap near my feet...and that was when I realized he was not chasing the lizards! There was a four foot garter snake in the grass and it was moving across the top of one of my garden shoes!

I grabbed the cat and ran up the driveway. I wasn't afraid of the snake as much as I was spooked by the fact that it was so close and I didn't even know it! I'm not sure if the cat was going to try and eat it or if he was trying to protect me. Niblet is a very protective cat and generally growls when someone pulls into our driveway a few seconds or when he hears sounds outside.

I'm really not comfortable with the cat chasing snakes, though. We also found a cottonmouth on our property a few days ago and there are a few other poisonous varieties of snakes in our area. We have two ponds and a spring-fed creek on the property and attract all kinds of wildlife, which is why the cat is generally an indoor cat. I must admit that I was glad he snuck out this afternoon. I appreciated the warning that there was a snake on my foot!

2 comments:

Mary Cunningham said...

I would've freaked out, Darla!! Especially with a snake crawling across my shoe!

We had the same problem with our dog when we lived in Florida, although Molly was pretty respectful of snakes and gave them plenty of warning before she pounced. Just glad she didn't run into any coral snakes!

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Darla Sue Dollman said...

I'm sorry I missed this message! I would not want to run into a coral snake, either. We see the garter constantly around our property, but few others. When I lived in Colorado we saw many, many rattlers, but here in the hill country of Texas we've only seen the garter and one other--a cottonmouth! Eek!