Two weeks ago, while I was on vacation in Alabama, I was within a couple of inches of touching a timber rattlesnake's tail after I bent down to pick something up off the ground. (The snake was in the overgrown grass, so I didn't notice it, until I almost touched it). Thankfully, it wasn't turned facing the opposite direction, or else I'd have been seriously screwed. I backed several feet away from it and watched as it turned around and slithered over the stone I had wanted to pick up. I've seen my share of non-venomous chicken snakes, ribbon snakes, and king snakes, but this was my first encounter with a venomous snake, so needless to say it took me a long time to stop shaking.

Then yesterday, when I stepped out on my front porch, I found a venomous cottonmouth moccasin staring at me. It coiled up and struck toward me, and I screamed and jumped back inside the house. I watched it out my living room window though, because I knew my husband and children were on their way home from visiting my in-laws, and I wanted to make sure it slithered away before they got home. Well, thirty minutes later, it was still in our front yard, so my husband ended up having to shoot it. (There was no way he could have killed it with a shovel because it was too big). If my kids or pets had stumbled upon this snake, it would have been horrible.

Anyway, so I'm really tired of having close encounters with snakes. Hurry up winter!

I think I would consider moving to an area that snakes do not frequent.

eeeehhhhhwww!

That reminds me of a friend I have in TN who always sends me pictures of the snakes he kills!


YEEEECHH!

(I'm glad you're safe! :P )

I edited my post to remove the picture. It's pretty gory and I don't want to offend anyone. Sorry about that!

you didn't offend me! (maybe someone PMed you?)

i'm a science nerd anyways, large snakes are interesting. Although I avoid working with animals altogether. My labmates were the ones who had to go slaughter mice to remove their brains, I didn't do that

I'm a herp lover (& wildlife rehabber) but sometimes you have to do what you have to do when a venomous snake is where your family & pets frequent. The only thing I have to add is that the younger venomous is something you'd have to be more wary of, not so much the big ones. The young/babies will empty out their entire sacks & that is more life threatening. The older they get the more they learn to control it....usually they inject enough to kill their typical prey (not saying it's not dangerous).

I like snakes, but still wouldn't want venomous ones hanging around my house. I spend several years in my teens in an area that had lots of diamondbacks, and we left them alone unless they were in the barn or right by the house. Those became hat bands. :-)

I find snakes in my yard during the summer, but I live near a creek and all we have in town are harmless little garter snakes. The rattlesnakes live more out in the country, so I've never worried about them here in town. We don't have scary things like cottonmouths here, thank goodness!

Thankfully just grass snakes around here! Nothing dangerous, I feel for you! I would be scared sh!@less! You did the right thing and were really lucky both times!

We live on an acre in Arizona just outside of Phoenix and right after we moved in, it was starting to get dark one evening and I was walking from our pool to our backdoor and what I thought was the drip system/sprinklers coming on, it was not at all, it was a Green Mohave Rattlesnake coming right at me. I jumped backwards like about 10 feet, that was definitely the quickest I've ever moved in my life. I've lived all my life in AZ and I have never encountered a rattler in the wild. The green mohave by the way is the most deadlest snake in all of North America. If that would gotten one my pets I would not have had to time to it to the vet for anti-venom.

Anyways, that snake is no longer with us. My husband chopped his head off with a garden hoe. We wanted to make sure it wasn't going to come back. Rattle snakes are very territorial.

Hey, you gotta do whatcha gotta do! Don't feel bad or anything, you were being threatened and so was your family.

Snakes are one thing that scare me SO bad. I don't care if it's just a little garter snake (those are the little black ones, right???)...I hate them!!! Last year 2 got into my house somehow. I am NOT a little girly girl, but I was SO close to calling one of the police officers I know and BEGGING him to come get the snake out of my house. I ended up getting a broom and sweeping him out.

I HATE SNAKES!!! I am deathly afraid of them. I would have to move.

I love snakes, but only when they're the kind you keep as pets. lol I don't mind a ball python or boa constrictor, but am sooooo not a fan of the venomous ones. It's one of the reasons I hated living in TX when my dh was in the army, those darn things were everywhere! Mowing the lawn was terrifying. lol