I’m actually quite a fan of snakes.  I’ve never understood why they elicit such fear in people.  I guess it’s the complete “otherness” of them.  But that’s one of the reasons I find them to be so fascinating.  When I was 13, my wonderful parents threw me an after-lunch birthday party at school.  My present?  A rat snake.

Rex was an awesome pet.  He…er, she as it turned out (laying eggs is kind of a good giveaway as to the sex of your snake) was a ‘rescue’ from a science classroom with too many young kids banging on her cage.  I had Rex for about 8 years before an incident occurred where her outdoor cage was left open.  I can never be certain, but I have a feeling that an unwelcome visitor to our house left it open.  Fortunately for her, rat snakes are native to Texas and she most likely happily slid off into the woods around my parents house.  We never did see rat snakes in that area until Rex escaped.  I honestly think she helped repopulate it!

I used to carefully scan every rat snake I saw for Rex’s telltale markings – a few burned scales just below her head.  I never could get the full story out of her but she spent a month – yes a MONTH – living in my parents’ car when she escaped the day I brought her home at the end of the school year.  I thought she had slipped out of the car (the door was open) and spent hours scouring the woods around school before giving up.  But one day my brother came racing in from the driveway babbling about a big snake in the car.  Without a second thought, I jumped in there and fished her out – could have been a rattlesnake for how carefully I looked – and a rat snakes natural defense is to look like a rattler.  I never did distinguish those scales on another snake but as they shed and repair scales I’m not sure I would have been able to.

But I do like to think that Rex came back for one last visit about 5 years after she left.  This is the door to my ‘apartment’ at my parents’ house – I came home and grabbed the door handle before seeing the small tail in the crack of the door.  I slowly followed the tail up…across…and WOW!  Even though I’m not afraid of snakes, it can be a bit startling seeing one eye to eye on your front door!

And now I still run into rat snakes.  It’s not quite so exciting to see a rat snake leaving the chicken coop at the farm (they do eat eggs and probably chicks if they could get to them) but right now we don’t have any chickens at the Nickle Farm in Austin.  We saw a 6 footer at the end of last summer who gave us a great show moving along the TOP of our fence and finally stretching into a tree.  And a few days ago, Blue – who spends much of her day finding critters to eat in the yard – was stalking something in the grass.  I figured it was another skink or caterpillar she had cornered…until a snake head reared up in the grass!

Probably about 4 feet long, this rat snake was none too happy about Blue trying to be friends.  The snake would turn to leave and Blue would follow it, just inches behind the tail, until she couldn’t help herself and had to reach out and play with the moving string.  Have you ever seen a snake jump?  Mighty impressive!  The snake could whip the front half of its body into the air and turn back around, landing with its head right next to its tail.  Blue was more amused than impressed with this sight though!  I eventually had to save Blue from the snake, or possibly the snake from Blue, I’m not sure which.  But then I was able to spend some time watching the magnificent creature move around in the grass and circle our big pecan tree…

…and eventually disappear into the canopy.  Just amazing.