I Repeat My Snake Offer

[Ed. note: This is NOT for Bush campaign literature.]

I repeat my offer to anyone who would like some snakes. We're having a bumper crop. It's like Karl Rove-style GOP convention is being held around my office (I've even named a few... waving to Tom DeLay slithering by on a nearby rock).

Today, one was trying to get into my front vestibule, and going around to avoid that one ended up with me running between two more.

Here's an interesting fact I did not know. Milk snakes, unlike rattlers who usually try to avoid you as much as you try to avoid them, are rather aggressive. They will strike, although they'll often start about 10 feet back and fall short, a miserable reality if you're a milk snake (so named by farmers who thought such snakes actually stole milk from their cows). While they're not very venomous, some people feel a little sick if they're bitten.

Now, I don't just have milk snakes, but it sure made me treat them differently these days. But all of these snakes tend to be rather aggressive. They often do not take pains to hide under normal circumstances (some have taken to seeming to nap on top of a large broad bush next to my office, in plain sight), and they've come to basically ignore the dogs (mine and all his friends) as they move about. These snakes even pretty much stay in the high traffic areas, too. In part, this is because there is stonework present, but there are other areas with stonework with lesser traffic and almost no snakes.