Late Breaking News: The Snake Is Dead

Phil ran in at 10:30 and said, "Hey, Amy, come see this snake!"

Why would I want to do that?!

"You should tell me if I ought to kill it!"

Our first broody chicken and chicks had started a racket. Phil went out with his headlamp and gathered up a frantic chick. As he was about to set it down, he realized that the surface of the pallet perch was moving. (Shiver shiver!)

I didn't want to get very close, but with ax and shovel, headlamp and flashlight in Ken's hand, Phil killed the five-foot snake.

A Google search showed it was a black ratsnake, a common snake in this area, usually about 5 feet long, black with faint markings left over from juvenile days, happy eater of small birds (harumph!), active on hot summer nights, able to climb trees (eww!), with a strong constriction ability (as Phil found when he knocked it off the pallet with the ax. Shiver shiver!).

Perhaps a 5-foot-long snake could have had some benefit, but I really didn't want it alive. If it's trying to eat my chickens, it's life is forfeit.

I had a similar moment earlier today. I had dumped a bucket of compost on a garden bed when something about toad-size scuttled away.

An enormous brown spider, egg sac under belly, was hiding from me. Years ago, I had read a Reader's Digest article about Brown Recluse spiders, and how their bites turn necrotic (disgusting!). I remembered the article saying they had a violin-like shape on their back. As did this spider.

I sought to kill it with a stick, but it moved away. As a good mother ought, she didn't abandon her eggs. I became a Charlotte-killer, because I thought, "If this spider's babies hatch, and my boys are bit by a brown recluse, who would be to blame?"

But this evening, I realized that a brown recluse is, well, plain brown, with a distended abdomen.

What I had feared was a wolf spider, which may have a mildly venomous bite, but usually does not. From Wikipedia: "Wolf spiders are unique in carrying their eggs along with them in a round silken globe, or egg sac, which they attach to the spinnerets at the end of their abdomen. The abdomen must be held in a raised position to keep the egg case from dragging on the ground, but they are still capable of hunting while so encumbered. Also unique to wolf spiders is their method of infant care. Immediately after the little spiders hatch and emerge from their protective silken case, they clamber up their mother's legs and all crowd onto her abdomen."

Next time I see one, I will let her live.

Knowledge is a wonderful thing.

(Speaking of which, my beautiful yellow barn friend spider, now gone for several weeks, was an orb weaver.)