Reptile String Adventures!

In this post, Hobbitses, I’m going to tell you all me and my family’s snake adventures (at least the main ones so far), and if you aren’t crazy about snakes then this post might not be for you. But who knows, you might still enjoy it!

Before I tell you all the crazy stories, here’s how it all started: You see, there was this family that we hung out with. They had eight kids, and the older boys loved snakes. They would bring them to church in the back of their big van, and after service they’d get them out, hang them around their necks, and have them slither around in their shirts. We thought that was pretty cool! At least, me and my oldest younger brother (if that makes any sense😂) did! We thought it would be pretty cool to catch our own snake…

So without further ado…

STORY 1:

The first snake I ever caught was a baby eastern milk snake. I’m not sure now if it actually was that kind of snake, for I wasn’t a snake expert at the time (not that I am now😆). Anyways, the snake bit me while I was holding it and I believe it drew blood. I was maybe 9 at the time. We let the snake go.

STORY 2:

At our old house our neighbors had a fairly large pond that we liked to walk around, searching for frogs, turtles, and most of all… snakes! So one day I found out that water snakes aren’t very nice. I grabbed one with my bare hands (he was maybe 2 1/2 or more feet long). The problem was, I was holding onto him too far down his neck and he could turn around and bite me. Which he did. Twice. So I let him go.

STORY 3:

The setting for this story is also down at the pond. But it involves a frog. A very strange frog. My mom was with me and a couple of my other siblings as well when we saw it. It was a huge bullfrog sitting on the bank. The strange thing was, he was facing land with his back turned to the water. He was very still. Then… he began to slowly slide down the bank and into the water. Then we realized that a big ugly water snake had a death grip on the poor froggy’s back end. The frog would occasionally make weak attempts to escape, but the snake held on and kept trying to swallow it. It slithered under a bush that overhung the pond and tried to choke down its oversized meal. I don’t believe we stayed long enough to see wether the snake gave up or not.

STORY 4:

I don’t remember how we first captured Asmodius (named after the infamous snake in Redwall) the little garter snake. I say “first captured” because he escaped more then once. We kept him in the house because my Mom isn’t like yours perhaps, and his home was in a tank in my brothers’ room. Whenever he escaped we’d hire my little sister (remember “Amy”?) and she would pick him up for us once we’d found him. I guess I was over snakes biting me. Then we got tired of him escaping in the house and put him in the shed one night. He was gone in the morning.

Side note 1: Garter snakes aren’t very good pets. But we did keep one named “Miriam” for a day or two. She had a stub tail and seemed very nice.

Side note 2: We ended up capturing another garter snake and called him Asmodius II.

Side note 3: once my brothers were at a park and saw tons of garter snakes, catching several of them with no trouble. They probably had just come out of hibernation, because garter snakes hibernate together.

STORY 5:

So… this isn’t really a story cause I don’t remember it in detail even though it happened in 2019.😂 But I was looking through old pictures and came across these:

It looks suspiciously like a copperhead… so we all stayed away from it and let it go as soon as everyone got a good look at it.

STORY 6:

A couple months ago we were driving home and saw a big reptile string a few houses down from ours. It was a black rat snake, which my brother had been wanting so bad. So he caught him and Smaug was kept in a tank in his room. we feed him mice from the pet shop every week. And that leads me to my final story…

STORY 7:

And now we get to the reptile string who inspired this blog post, and the only snake we ever paid for. A several weeks ago my brother came back from the pet store with more then mice. It was a baby corn snake! He/she is very adorable with beautiful light brown markings. We put it in a separate smaller tank from Smaug and there he stayed til… he escaped. It was Friday, the 30th of July to be exact. My brother came upstairs to check on the little guy after we had been watching a movie (How to Train Your Dragon I think. Ironic, right?😂) and he was gone. We searched the room frantically, but carefully, because we knew a little string like him could be easily smooshed. I was ready to give up when Mom’s earnest prayers were answered and she found him! He was under my brothers’ queen sized loft bed stuck to the sticky side of their tape lights. We knew if we ripped the lights off, the scales would come off with it, so Mom had the brilliant idea of using coconut oil. It worked! So now you know what to do if your snake is stuck on something sticky. Coconut oil is the trick!

Well, that’s all for now Hobbitses! Hope you enjoyed those snaky tails *ahem* tales. How do y’all feel about snakes? Have you had any reptile string adventures?