spyderk
Just a member
I took my youngest to an appointment yesterday, and Serena (my 3rd child, going on 8) stayed behind with my friend and the rest of her children. I came back and Serena had a bandaid on her finger, and she asked me how I thought she got it. Then she uncovered a plastic jar with Saran wrap on top, sealed by a rubber band. She said, "I caught a garter! And it BIT me!" She showed me the little bite mark, and told the story, which goes as follows.
"I was walking with my rooster, trying to feed it, and I was the first one outside and then I see this gliding thing, smoothing through the grass. So I just dropped my chicken and I go after the snake. I grab it's tail to see what kind it was. It was a garter. So I tried to pick it up like a venomous snake, and it bit me. It got away. I grabbed its tail again, and then it bit me again and I was holding as long as I could but it hurt so bad that I flinged it around in circles. It let go. It fell in the grass. I picked it up closely by the tail, not too far away from its vent. I put it in the jar and tied the rubber band around it. The end."
The facial expressions during the story are priceless. She told my friend that she thinks she needs more snake training, because she picked it up just like Jeff Corwin but it still bit her!
After she showed me the snake, she ran outside to play with the chickens again. I was holding my friend's new baby (who is not even a week old) and I notice that the jar is empty. I looked on the table and saw it slithering through their clean laundry and other things. For a second I thought about grabbing for it with one hand, but then didn't want to risk it pooping on the baby in my other arm, so I called for the oldest kid to grab the baby so I could grab the snake. I grabbed the garter before it made it off the table, and it wrapped and pooped like no tomorrow. After that, it decided that biting might do the trick, so it probably bit me 5 times. I told my friend to grab the camera and her kids were amazed that I didn't care that it was biting me and that I wanted pictures before it let go! I was telling them to look at how ridiculous it looked, this tiny little snake trying to scare me off. Eventually he gave up and hasn't bit since. He does musk every time you get him out, though. I'll probably let him go across the lake later on today.
Unfortunately Serena was pretty freaked out by the bite, and was even afraid to hold Lucifer today, though I talked her into it and she's fine with Luce now. She tells me that she really wants to hold Whisper (the garter) but something in her won't let her pick him up. She did hold him briefly today, but she got scared and put him back. I told her that she cannot fling the snake around if it bites, and that picking up a snake, especially a wild one, means that you have to be somewhat prepared for a bite. It's funny to think that it was a garter bite from a snake that size when I was Serena's age that made me fearful to pick up wild snakes, and I hadn't picked one up until last year with that huge garter. The idea of getting bit is much more scary than the actual bite. She is proud that she caught her first snake, though. Hopefully she'll try again!
"I was walking with my rooster, trying to feed it, and I was the first one outside and then I see this gliding thing, smoothing through the grass. So I just dropped my chicken and I go after the snake. I grab it's tail to see what kind it was. It was a garter. So I tried to pick it up like a venomous snake, and it bit me. It got away. I grabbed its tail again, and then it bit me again and I was holding as long as I could but it hurt so bad that I flinged it around in circles. It let go. It fell in the grass. I picked it up closely by the tail, not too far away from its vent. I put it in the jar and tied the rubber band around it. The end."
The facial expressions during the story are priceless. She told my friend that she thinks she needs more snake training, because she picked it up just like Jeff Corwin but it still bit her!
After she showed me the snake, she ran outside to play with the chickens again. I was holding my friend's new baby (who is not even a week old) and I notice that the jar is empty. I looked on the table and saw it slithering through their clean laundry and other things. For a second I thought about grabbing for it with one hand, but then didn't want to risk it pooping on the baby in my other arm, so I called for the oldest kid to grab the baby so I could grab the snake. I grabbed the garter before it made it off the table, and it wrapped and pooped like no tomorrow. After that, it decided that biting might do the trick, so it probably bit me 5 times. I told my friend to grab the camera and her kids were amazed that I didn't care that it was biting me and that I wanted pictures before it let go! I was telling them to look at how ridiculous it looked, this tiny little snake trying to scare me off. Eventually he gave up and hasn't bit since. He does musk every time you get him out, though. I'll probably let him go across the lake later on today.
Unfortunately Serena was pretty freaked out by the bite, and was even afraid to hold Lucifer today, though I talked her into it and she's fine with Luce now. She tells me that she really wants to hold Whisper (the garter) but something in her won't let her pick him up. She did hold him briefly today, but she got scared and put him back. I told her that she cannot fling the snake around if it bites, and that picking up a snake, especially a wild one, means that you have to be somewhat prepared for a bite. It's funny to think that it was a garter bite from a snake that size when I was Serena's age that made me fearful to pick up wild snakes, and I hadn't picked one up until last year with that huge garter. The idea of getting bit is much more scary than the actual bite. She is proud that she caught her first snake, though. Hopefully she'll try again!
