Snake Stories

Yesterday, my younger sister and I had lunch. She lives in Florida and also owns and rents the house where our parents lived a couple of blocks away. She told me that she had seen a bunch of black snakes around that house over the past few months. Of course, she didn’t disturb them since they were harmless and also eat any rodents they can find. She even told me of the day she went over to that house and opened the garage door, leaned down to pick up what looked like a piece of bungee cord, and discovered it was a dead black snake.

A few days ago, Marian was cleaning out part of the garage. She came across some metal stakes in a bag and left them for me. When I saw them, I knew they went with a roll of netting that we use to cover newly seeded grass areas. I left the bag on the garage steps until this afternoon.

The roll of netting is on top of my tack room in our barn. I lowered the set of attic stairs that is the only way up and ascended. When I got to the top, there was a dead black snake. Yep. It was probably three feet or more long when alive. And it hadn’t died that long ago.

First, I haven’t seen a snake around here (although I expect they’re in our pastures) for a couple of years. So, here’s this dead black snake I see the day after my sister has told me of her finding one.

Second, and this is the most curious to me, how did the snake get there? The tack room exterior is smooth metal. The walls around it are smooth metal. Did it somehow crawl up a drainpipe and come in on the roof through a vent? Guess we’ll never know until I see another one trying it again.

So far this year:

• Salamander in the dog’s water bowl in our barn, which is nowhere near any body of water.
• Dead black snake one story off the ground with no visible means of getting there.

Wonder what’s next.