we spent most of the day getting the big flower bed ready to plant, then planted several flowers/hedges/vines/etc... in it. about dusk, we called it a day and my wife went to fire up the grill to do us some hot dogs. i remembered that i had left a small hand spade in the flower bed and went back to fetch it. i bent down to retrieve the spade and just as my hand touched the small, wooden handle---something moved about six inches away. a quick glance and---it was a friggin' cotton mouth snake! one every bit as big around as my arm!
naturally i jumped back as if the devil himself was about to latch onto me!
let me state this for the record... i HATE snakes! being born on a farm, and stumbling across them very frequently... i learned early on NOT to fool around with the buggers. i've had/seen dogs bit by them, some lived, some didn't, but all were hurt VERY BAD and in intense pain, the ones that lived and the ones that didn't. i've seen cows and horses bitten...same thing. i even lost a fine stud horse one time over a savage bite. so yeah, though i know the old saw about "if you leave them alone, they'll leave YOU alone," just don't hold water all of the time.
true, snakes hold a very important and often unappreciated part in nature's plan of rodent and pest control, i'll grant them that... especially out in the woods, swamps or other wild places... but on the other hand, a posionous snake around a home and or dwelling has NO BUSINESS there at all. and its 'bound' to cause mischief and trouble. there's just no getting around that, no matter the part they play in nature's rodent control plan. ---and a cotton mouth IS a posionous snake, be sure! between that and a copperhead, they are the two most FEARED snakes in THIS area.
this sucker was huge... an old snake that'd been around for a long while... as i said, as big and thick as my arm, and about as long as i am tall. a big mother. and though he didn't strike me, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. you just can't mess around with a big, old, cotton mouth. they are very posionous, and very aggressive, they get scared/angry very easy, especially at this time of year, and the slightest move on a person or animals' part will set them into deadly motion. though their bite is not 'always' fatal to man or beast, you can bet big money on the fact that you will be VERY sorry for it. intense pain, possible loss of the bitten limb... and ALWAYS the chance of death. especially for young childeren, young animals... or OLD farts like me that isn't in too good a shape anyway.
no---that cotton mouth had to go. just no way around it, and with no ready and or quick means to trap or snare it and haul it away to another, safer place... unfortunately, for my own, my wife's, and my pups' safety, he had to die.
he was too close to the house to shoot, or i would have splattered him apart with my pump shotgun. that left taking him out with a shovel, axe or hoe. now i once before tried to kill a snake with an axe... not a good idea. oh, sure, if you hit it, you'll surely kill it. ah, but what if you miss? the axe is buried in the ground, and with its somewhat short handle, your arm is then down near the snake and within easy striking distance. well, the one time i tried it----naturally i missed---and almost got bit, so the axe was out of the question. also the shoved was not shaped right for the job. that left the hoe. a handy tool, no question about it, just right for chopping weeds, but hardly perfect for snake killing. but it would have to do.
i got the hoe, took careful aim, and swung. ah...yeah, i hit him sure enough, but only a glancing blow, a cut near his scaly head. AND BOY HE WAS PISSED! he came right out of that flower bed in his snaky, S-type movements, striking every second or two---trying his best to get me! sweet jesus but i was dancing back and stoking at him rapid fire with the hoe, and of course missing him every time.
i'm sure it would have looked very funny, my dancing/leaping/running back motions and the chop, chop, chop, of my swinging hoe... lol. but ah, this was life or death, and not funny to ME i can tell ya!
finally i managed a good lick on his head and he spun around and actually coiled around the blade of the hoe. i got the blade on his skull and kept slamming it into the ground and finally he was dead. a terrible and savage combat between us. and one i barely won. sheesh!
if there is a next time (and i hope there isn't) i'll use the shotgun, flower bed and near the house or not! that was just too frigging close for comfort!
any of you other chaps live in snake-infested areas... keep a close eye out and BE CAREFUL.
Beowolff
PS, a link to a cotton mouth picture. ugh!
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snak ... yaway1.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
That is also why I'd turn off the pilot lights on the stove, etc because I didn't want the old house to launch. 
Those questions and more were asked and asked again, especially since I was the only one in the unit to score Expert with a .45.