photo #1546905

The other night I was sitting outside, enjoying the evening. George and his brother Throckmorton were in the tree enjoying their favorite pastime of throwing pinecone pieces and hulls at me. Suddenly, Sammy slithered over.... Now me and Sammy have an interesting relationship. He is a 7' long black snake. He likes to sleep in, under, or around my projects. We see each other and both run the other way. He spits his stink at me but again I'm usually not there to smell it. When I saw him, I jumped up and started to run when he said "sit down, if I wanted you, you really think I would come from your front ? I could have crawled up the back of your chair and been in your lap before you knew it".I tentatively asked what he wanted when he said " I have been watching and listening to you, we ain't all that different. We both deal with rattlesnakes and copperheads. You ain't like most " leggers ", ( What we call y'all) though, you don't shy away from them either. But why don't you eat em like me ? They taste so good" I told him. They are venomous to us "leggers" if they bite us, we can die. If we eat them their venom In the meat can still kill us" "So I'm keeping you alive by eating them ?" " Yeah, could be" " Can I ask you a question ? "" What ? " As I took the last belt of my applejack. " If y'all are so fragile when it comes to snakes. Why are you so comfortable around me ?" " You respect me, you don't try to bite me, usually when we see each other we both run. And you do enjoy eating the bad snakes that want to bite me "." Throckmorton has tried to tell me this, but he is just a squirrel. Something about the enemy of my enemy is my friend""Exactly, you scare the scat out of me. But, you do eat the ones who just lie and wait and bite what ever comes along whether they can eat it or not " "Y'all leggers are some pretty interesting critters , maybe I need to come around more. And try this applejack stuff I keep hearing about..... "