So I am traumatized. I could have handled the first snake. I was sweeping the walkway that goes up to our front porch and saw a rather large (about 4-feet-long) black snake in the yard. When I moved away, it crossed the walkway I had just swept and went into the shrubbery. To keep it from going into the garage, I went ahead and put my car in and closed the garage door.
A little while later I took some trash out through the laundry room and into the garage where we keep our trash bin. I turned around to re-enter the house, and there was A DIFFERENT LARGE SNAKE, also about 4 feet long and black with white on it, ON THE STEPS I HAD JUST COME DOWN to get into the garage from the laundry room. (Thank goodness I had closed the door between the garage and the laundry room.) I thought I would die. I was in that closed garage with a large snake.
I couldn’t get back in the house and couldn’t get to the garage door opener, so I ran around the car, got in, used the remote garage door opener to open the garage door, ran out of the garage and around to the back of the house and pounded on the door (which was locked) and yelled for my husband (who because of his recent stroke, moves very slowly).
I then phoned our neighbor to see if her husband could come over and get the snake out of our garage. I was standing on the back deck when I made the call and had no sooner begun speaking than I saw ANOTHER large black snake slither across the walkway that leads to the deck. My poor neighbor probably thought I was crazy because I could hardly speak on the phone.
The neighbor did come over, but it took him a long time to get the snake because it kept going behind things in the garage. He got it out, and we are very, very grateful. But even after several hours, my heart was still pounding. I know black snakes aren’t poisonous, and I know they eat the bad snakes, but I still feel traumatized. I mean, I closed the garage door so a snake wouldn’t get in there, and another one already was in there!
A little while later, my husband went into the garage to take out some trash and began yelling for me as if something were terribly wrong. He had seen ANOTHER snake in the garage! I phoned the neighbor again, but no one was home. After much yelling back and forth as to what to do I called 911, and the dispatcher gave me the name and telephone number of a man who would come out and remove the snake.
Thank goodness for The Snake Guy! On the phone he calmed me down, as I was nearly hysterical. He explained that the snake my husband saw (which neither one of us could find now) was probably a rat snake, most likely the mate of the one that had been removed earlier. He said it would leave of its own accord, and if it doesn’t, he will come remove it tomorrow.
I hate being this hysterical about snakes, but these were the largest snakes I’ve ever seen on our property. My Facebook friends are laughing at my reaction. Maybe one day I’ll laugh, too.
This photo has nothing to do with the story. It just makes me feel better.
Unexpected in common hours 
A very good story.Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you! Maybe one day I’ll laugh about it!
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You are welcome! Yes you will for sure.
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It is scary to see that many snakes and to be inadvertently closed up in a garage with one, and rat snakes get very big and so are scary. But they are good snakes and eat the really scary poisonous ones. They won’t even bite you unless you try and grab them. They just want to get away from you. I have seen rat snakes at The Holler fleeing in terror from a roadrunner who will kill them. All birds of prey will eat them too as will coyotes.
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Yes, I know they are good snakes, but my hysterical fear has no basis in rational thought. LOL 🙂 I’m much better now, though. As I write this,my daughter’s in-laws have a snake in their bathroom! We may be in for an interesting summer! 🙂
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I am pretty used to snakes, but I do think that being in an enclosed area with one (or four!) might give me pause too. I thought you were going to say you got in your car, backed out, and stayed locked in until the snakes were taken care of, so you were braver than that!
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Well, I would have done that, but the key was not in the car. I would have had to get past the large rat snake to get back in the house to get the car key. LOL
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Goodness gracious!
I woke up this morning after dreaming that a Black Mamba came into our house, only to open my reader and see this post of yours! Are snakes more active in summer in your part of the world as well?
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Yes, they are very active in summer and not active here at all in the winter. Right this minute our son-in- law’s parents have a snake in their bathroom. At least these are not venomous. The very thought of a Black Mamba scares me to death! And I thought I was the only person who had bad dreams about snakes!
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Hi, Debby, I apologize for laughing. I wasn’t laughing at your reaction as much as identifying and laughing about the amount of fear that we (Moi, Barbara, Patricia, you, probably Becky, and others) have of harmless snakes. As far as I am concerned, there ARE no harmless snakes. There are water moccasins in the water, in the boathouse, on the banks of the lake, copperheads (in the desert in back of Barbara’s house, in her garden bushes), and rattle snakes (in the woods, in the backyard, on the trails, wherever – ready to strike). Period. And, I was supposed to watch out where I walked. The fear overtook me. I still shudder and don’t like them, but I am not as afraid as I used to be. It didn’t matter if I LATER found out a snake was harmless. It was poisonous when I saw it. Period. I had trouble walking in the hills of California, looking out for snakes. PLUS, there is the added concern regarding a snake-less garage. Ugh. So, my suggestion is to work on the fear. That has helped me, but I don’t live in a wooded area. Just saying…..
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You don’t have to apologize for laughing! It would be funny to me if I weren’t the person involved. I am trying to work on the fear, but the only thing that has helped so far is to pray to St. Patrick who drove the snakes out of Ireland and to wear a St. Patrick medal around my neck. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s helping. LOL
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Now I know why Grandmama Palmer “swept” her yards. She had an old country house in SW Georgia. There was white sand in the front yard and side yards. She would often sweep them with a rake until there wasn’t a. blade of grass or a leaf to be seen. You could easily see if there were any critters. Also, she could see the tracks if anything snuck in when she wasn’t looking
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I think a lot of folks in the South had yards that were swept. Sure makes sense.
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To see one after another and another… how scary! Glad your neighbor helped and you call 911!
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Thank you! We haven’t seen anymore, thank goodness!
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