You never know

[Lee Schierer]

You never know what you will find in your yard. This afternoon as I was entering our house, I happened to see some movement in the flower bed next to the house. Upon checking closer, this is what I found.
IMG_4455.jpg
For those that don't know it is a Milk Snake about 30" long. It is by far the largest milk snake I've ever seen and the first one I've seen in my yard.

[Mel Fulks]

That's a cobra! A neighbor told me he saw a snake. I said what kind. He said "cobra". I said "cobra around here?"
He replied "to me they are all Cobras " Kind of a all guns are loaded thing.

[Pete Costa]

It must be snake season. I now have a 3+ foot rat snake in the drop ceiling of my home basement. Non-poisonous, but still pretty disturbing to hear it slithering around overhead. Any bright ideas on how to catch it (preferably without harming it)? And yes, I did fill in the likely entry hole when I mistakenly thought it had gone back outside. ��
Thanks,
Pete

[Lee Schierer]

It must be snake season. I now have a 3+ foot rat snake in the drop ceiling of my home basement. Non-poisonous, but still pretty disturbing to hear it slithering around overhead. Any bright ideas on how to catch it (preferably without harming it)? And yes, I did fill in the likely entry hole when I mistakenly thought it had gone back outside. ��
Thanks,
Pete

Put on a pair of gloves and grab it.

[Andrew Seemann]

I'll take our -30F winters over finding that sort of thing any day.

[David Publicover]

I'll take our -30F winters over finding that sort of thing any day.

Agreed. Although there has been a black bear roaming around our town the last few days! Still better than big snakes...lol!

[Michael Weber]

Every day I’m thankful I don’t live in Australia where evidently everything living, and maybe some not living, is dangerous.

[Adam Grund]

So I guess that confirms that what I found a few years ago In the garage was A milk snake. Actually, 2 of them. I had a freezer chest in the garage and I kept finding snakes back by the compressor. Got tired of that and rid of the freezer.
The two that I found were only 18-24”, but I did find a skin 30” or so- never did see the snake it belonged to.
I wrapped both up in the tines of a rake and relocated both of them down the road in the woods, but damn if they didn’t keep finding their way back. After I got rid of the freezer haven’t seen them anymore.
I do have 2 black snakes that live on the far side of the pond I am currently draining, and I find at least a doz Gardner’s or so in the wood piles, pond, ect. Used to hate snakes- ruin my day if I saw one. If I was cutting wood and saw one, that’d be the end of the cutting for the day. Now I just tolerate them. Find one and just wait for it to get out of the way. Ain’t touching it though. Which is silly, considering everything around here can’t really cause any harm to me. Still though.

[Jim Koepke]

Knowing which snakes are which has kept me from being afraid of snakes and aware of which ones to stay away from.

Mostly here in the west all we have are rattle snakes to cause worry.

Came across a garter snake a few days ago while picking up some old pots and trays outside the greenhouse. It slithered off and ended up inside of a pot. It was taken into the greenhouse and released in what may be garter snake heaven. They can eat a lot of bugs.

So far the only snakes we have seen around here are garter snakes.

jtk

[Pete Costa]

Put on a pair of gloves and grab it.

I'd be happy to, but the damn thing moves faster than I can open up the tiles!

[Wade Lippman]

Put on a pair of gloves and grab it.

I'm always afraid of hurting them.

My wife is absolutely terrified of them. Years ago we were at a park where Lake Ontario borders a drumlin. The lake erodes it in interesting ways, leaving long narrow peninsulas abut 50' high. You have to be careful how you walk because the whole thing can just collapse. At the end of a long one about 3' wide she saw a 1' garter snake and ran as fast as she could back to the main land. She probably had a 95% chance of being seriously hurt by the land collapsing, and 0% from the snake. But she said she would do it again.

[mike stenson]

Yep

[Lee Schierer]

Fortunately we don't have any of those near me.

[mike stenson]

We get them pretty regularly, most of the time the dogs alert us (they've been trained to avoid them, so when they're circling something at a 3m diameter it's clear what they're on to). Most of the time it's a non-issue and they go away peacefully. This little guy, however, presented a challenge. He was so tiny, I didn't have tools to remove him.. and after 4 days of hanging out in that spot (which is right by the family entrance to the house) I had to call the fire dept for them to come and remove him.

That's RG6 and a 2" conduit btw for scale and it's strange what you just 'get used to'.