Oh, how I hate snakes!

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I've always hated the thoughts of seeing a snake all my life. Maybe it lies in the knowledge that I was around them too much when I was young! Once, when a neighbor and I were walking back toward our house from my Aunt's, the neighbor said, "watch out! That snake is about to crawl on your skirt"! You talk about jumping and running. I took one glance and there was this green snake on the fence by the road ready to reach out and bite me, I thought! Didn't matter that it was green, or I could probably have killed it. It literally scared me within inches of my life. About the same time in life, the neighbor's husband took my family and we all went to pick huckleberries. We were on the side of the hill, picking away. I was up near the top and had nearly a whole bucket of berries. My cousin was near me. Daddy, Mother, the neighbor and my brothers were on down the hill. All of a sudden, there appeared a snake near me! Of course, it was crawling down to a hole, but I wasn't thinking about that. All I could think about was here is a snake; get out of here. I dropped my bucket of berries and ran, leaving my Daddy to try and salvage those berries it had taken so long to pick. Needless to say, I never went back there again! Then, years later, a bunch of us teenagers had gone to the creek to swim where we had gone for years with our parents or other kids. This one day, we were swimming in the cool water when someone hollered, "Snakes". I looked up stream and saw all these snakes (water moccasins) coming our way. You have never seen such rushing by the kids to get out of that water. That was my last day to ever swim in that creek. Just the thought of those snakes swimming in that water made my skin crawl and I was happy to give up swimming there! After I married and we moved here where we live now, we had lots of blackberry bushes on our property. The kids and I used to love to pick blackberries for making jelly and baking blackberry pies. And I definitely remember the last time I picked any berries on our property. The kids and I were down in the pasture picking. I was close to the fence. I went to pick some berries and, as my hand went out, I saw those eyes. I almost dropped what I had. I took the kids and we got out of there very quickly. I never went back although my kids did. They were less scared than me, apparently. I've seen many snakes around here, and I've killed a few. Once, the dogs had a huge snake cornered when I came driving in the yard. I just took the car and backed over the snake, pulled up over the snake, so many times that it finally died! I was too cowardly to get out and get a hoe. I later found it was only a chicken snake. I also killed one on the outside wall of my garage. I just happened to see it in between the bricks. I took a hoe and killed that one. Once, I was mowing on the lawnmower, just minding my own business out in the front yard. I looked to the side and there came this huge snake toward me. I threw my feet up on the top of the lawnmower and let it go! It ran over the snake, cutting it into a million pieces. It's a wonder that part of it didn't fly up and hit me. And, had it done that, I would not be here telling the story! My husband was at the garage, listening to me hollering to the top of my voice and laughing very hard! He thought it was the funniest sight he had ever seen. As for me, I've had too many encounters with snakes to like them. I've even inadvertently picked a small one up in pine needles when we were cleaning the yards. Once, when I was digging up some small ferns, I picked up a baby one. I quit working in those ferns very quick! One Sunday night, I returned from church. My husband was standing out on the patio. He had the outside lights on, so we were just standing there talking. I had put the garage door down, thinking that we'd just go in the back door. Well, I looked over in the back yard and asked him why that big limb was over there in the yard. He made a better observation than me and said, "it's not a limb. It's a snake." That scared the daylights out of me! There was no where to go because the garage door was down and I had no opener with me. The front yard was no place to go in the dark (snakes!), and I sure could not make it to the back door. My husband said he'd try to jump up on the top step and get in the house and get his gun. I was scared for him to do that, but he made it. He came out the back door just as the snake got half way between the steps and the patio. He shot the snake in the head, separating it's head from it's body. He never found the head. But he discovered the snake was a water moccasin. Life has certainly been adventurous for me when it comes to snakes! I'd rather never see another one!