WARNING: This column contains frank subject matter that may turn the stomach of the squeamish. In other words, if you don’t like reading about blood-sucking insects, don’t read this column!
Snakes and ticks have entered our heart and home the past few weeks; bring controversy and ancient philosophical questions.
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| Garter snake |
We have an over-abundance of garter snakes on our property. At least I think so. Whenever I go to the garden shed, I see one, or sometimes more. As we took a sauna on Monday evening, one even crawled up through the floor by the door. I thought about catching it, but decided the spectacle would be too much for the family. (I can see the headlines: “Naked man killed by Finnish garter snake in sauna” or “Naked man wearing Finnish garter killed by snake in sauna.”)
Last summer during some house remodeling, one even came into the kitchen. I didn’t panic too much, because my grandma Heiller used to tell about a nest of rattlesnakes they had living in their basement that would visit their warm kitchen on some mornings. At least garter snakes aren’t poisonous.
Still, I’ve taken to catching every snake I see, putting them in a box, and transferring them to a lonely stretch of highway between our house and Sturgeon Lake.
This has created some domestic disagreement. Cindy likes to point out that snakes are great rodent and insect hunters. I know that. That’s fine. But I’ll still take a few extra mice and June bugs in exchange for fewer garter snakes.
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| Creepy, crawly, dead: It all was part of reality for country kids. |
Noah, Mollie, and their friend, Chris, turned into snake hunters on Saturday too, with my blessing and coaching. The first snake was hiding under an old piece of carpeting. I caught it by stepping lightly on it, then picked it up gingerly behind the head. I showed them how to hold it so that it couldn’t reach around and nip me. I assured them that it wasn’t poisonous, and that a bite wouldn’t even draw blood, or at least not much. Still, my heart was beating faster than my calm words showed as the snake twisted around my arm. I put it in an empty garbage can.
The kids seemed bolder than me. They soon had another 15-incher, which went into the can along with grass, sticks, bracket fungi, some lilacs, and a dish of water. They showed the two snakes to me. “That one’s Scaley,” Chris said. “This one is George.” George had a little scar by his tail, Noah explained. It might have been one that got away from me last year by doing the old “Twist-Your-Tail-Off-When-Grabbed By-A-Schmuck-Head” maneuver.
They ended up catching only one more snake, a baby about six inches long, but they had so much fun that they passed up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons. Chris wanted to take Scaley home, which was fine with me, but not so fine with his mom and dad.
Snakes and ticks go together. They both like the long grass by the garden shed. Chris, who lives on Sturgeon Lake, hadn’t seen so many woodticks in his entire life. There were dozens of them crawling over the carpet which hid the snakes. And there were dozens of them on the kids, on legs, arms, butts, necks: One had even holed up in Chris’ belly-button, which he discovered at the lunch table, along with a dozen or so others. The kids gave them to me to smash with my fork. When we took a break for a root beer float at 3 p.m., a dozen more came off.
Chris did not ask to take home any woodticks, but I have a hunch he took some home anyway. Moms and Dads are powerless in such decisions.
Noah has taken a higher road to the tick invasion. He posed a serious
philosophical question the other morning: “Which do you like better, woodticks or mosquitoes?”
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| The dreaded woodtick. |
The question stunned me for a minute. Then I had to confess my answer: mosquitoes. I never thought I’d defend mosquitoes. But at least you can see and hear them fairly easily, at least there is a repellant for them. Woodticks are just plain gross, ugly, and useless. No theologian has yet explained the reason God made woodticks, as far as I know. (Cindy believes that they are meant for chickens to eat, because Cindy wants chickens, but that’s another matter all together.) They sneak up on you, and you often don’t feel them until they are crawling up your thigh as you sit at a school board meeting. And then there are the ones on the dogs that get as big as your thumbnail, that fall off and you don’t discover until you step on them.
This column is deteriorating faster than a garter snake in the grass, or a woodtick in a belly-button, so I’ll end while I’m ahead. Remember, I warned you.
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