“Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore’s chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, “Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know.””
He then sank to the floor in a dead faint. (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling, 1997)
Okay so there’s not really a troll in my dungeon.
Actually I don’t really have a dungeon. I do have a basement, but there’s no troll in there, only my mom.
Unless there’s something she’s not telling me, there’s no troll.
I know what you’re thinking. What in the hell does that have to do with a dog blog? Has she lost her freaking mind?
I suppose the answer to that would depend upon who you spoke to.
This post actually has nothing to do with trolls or dungeons. It all has to do with our wood pile. I just wasn’t sure you’d read the post if I told you what was in the wood pile.
The story goes like this.
Thursday after work I took the dogs for a walk and Hubby went outside to cut some wood. When we came back from our walk Hubby said “Look what I found in the wood pile.”
Hubby said he lifted up the tarp covering the wood and there it was. He poked it with a stick and it slithered under the wood pile. Yesterday when he lifted up the tarp, it was back again.
Hubby says it’s a Garter Snake.
I said it needs to go.
Hubby says it won’t mess with people or pets, he also says it’s eating spiders.
Well then. As long as it’s eating spiders, it can stay. As long as it leaves me and my dogs alone. I mean really, what’s one snake vs how many spiders in a pile of wood?
I’m really not so worried about it bothering me. If you’re a betting person, odds are pretty good that I will never approach the wood pile again.
I’m not so sure about the dogs. They keep going over there and sniffing.
Every time they head out that way I tense up. But I grab my camera too. 🙂 If they do discover it, hopefully I’ll have pictures. Unless I’m too busy screaming and running.
Would you leave a Garter Snake in your wood pile? Would you go near a wood pile with a Garter Snake? Inquiring minds want to know.
I don’t think I want a wood pile now for my new fireplace!!! And snakes don’t normally bother me! That thing looks like a GIGANTIC TIMBER RATTLER!!
OMG – I would not go near that wood until the snake had been removed…and moved far away…so far that I was sure it would never come back!
Btw – that snake looks like it’s grinning at you!
Not sure I’d go near the woodpile – have a thing about snakes…
Ok, Mom saw the snake and that was the end of reading the post. She is so terrified of snakes it is not funny, can’t even see photos of them as it scares her. We are no longer walking certain places because once there was a snake there. I know, over the top but that is how she is. She had some scary experiences as a kid and now gets nightmares and stuff when she sees one. Not sure what all happened but I sure hope you never see that thing again.
ACK!!! I HATE snakes!!! I hear everyone say those kind of snakes are handy to have around that eat the vermin and bugs … but … its still a snake. We had a little Garter Snake that we got rid of because it had a habit of getting into our basement … and I couldn’t have that. I wouldn’t be going near the woodpile either!!! Good luck!
~Rebecca & Teach
Yikes we don’t like snakes. Have a marvellous Monday.
Best wishes Molly
No one at our house would go near the wood pile again! (Snakes are the one thing the hubs is afraid of!) We have a lot of rattlesnakes in San Diego. Not good! In fact, I’ve been thinking about doing a post about my friend’s dog getting bit by one. (Luckily she was fine!)
Well… I really do hate snakes. Once participated in a psychology experiment to lessen my fear. Did not work. Made me more afraid.
Living in the country for so long, I’ve had (too) many encounters with snakes. Some harmless like yours… but copperheads and rattlesnakes, too. Did I mention I hate them? I have lots of snake stories, but my “favorite” is the day I glanced out the kitchen window to see Lucy twirling some long thing around her head like a pro-cowgirl roping champ. Humongous black snake. I about had a heart attack. The dog daddy convinced Lucy to stop and with one mighty fling a traumatized black snake hightailed it out of the yard and was never seen again.
The poisonous snakes: I see ’em… I kill ’em. The “harmless” snakes: I see ’em once. Live and let live. See ’em again? Goners.
LOL!!!!
OMD that is soooooooo scary… butt if you KNOW it is there you can Avoid it. THAT is what WE would do.. And so would/wood our MOM. THANKFULLY by the time we need wood from Our Woodshed… all the snakes will be Hi Burrrrrrr Nating.
Haha. Snakes are not one of my fears, but spiders definitely are, so when faced with a decision like this, I am definitely pro-snake! My only concern would be that a pet-snake interaction wouldn’t end well for all parties (dogs are curious, but in our house there are also cats and I have no idea what they’d do).
This is a very cool-looking snake, too! I like the blue. He looks pretty big, but since garter snakes are harmless, I’d let him be. Another kind of snake, though, maybe not.
I’m not fond of snakes myself, though my darling husband loves them. Part of his job (wetland scientist), but I find them creepy. I’d probably leave it, too, though I’d worry a bit about the dogs because even though garter snakes are non-venomous, they still can bite!
Snakes are our friends. Yes, I would welcome having one in my yard even though i tend to be pretty much a woos. I have even removed garter snakes from other people”s yards and relocated them to more welcome environs.
“I just wasn’t sure you’d read the post if I told you what was in the wood pile.” LOL – you crack me up!
I’m also glad that you weren’t referring to your mom as being the troll. 😉
Um…I think I would let that snake stay in there and eat the spiders and not be worried about it. I’m guessing if your two hassle the snake enough in the woodpile, you may lose your spider exterminator though.
Also, I do want to challenge your husband and his saying that snake is only eating spiders. That’s a pretty large snake and it seems like its appetite would need more than spiders to be satisfied. Unless of course you have large (large = big as your hand) mutant spiders you aren’t telling us about.
Ohmygosh. I hate snakes. hate them hate them hate them. I default to killing them. However, I have learned that there are some snakes that are beneficial. Around my area, king snakes are the main ones I think of. They kill other snakes, even poisonous ones. So, I have retrained myself NOT to run screaming like a girl (though I am one) and sending a guy to kill a king snake. I have not retrained the guys not just kill the snake and check what kind it is later, so sometimes they die anyway. If there is any question as to what kind of snake it is, it is soon a dead snake. The dogs are no help at all. Thumper is scared of snakes and runs like hell when he sees one. BTW – that looks like a big garter snake. BIG.
Ummm….I would make my husband vanquish the troll…err..snake and then I would make him forever be in charge of fetching wood from the wood pile because I would never, ever go near it again.
Umm, I’m pretty sure I would have to move out!! Just kidding! We get little green snakes in our yard and flowerbeds from time to time…and they freak me out! 🙂
We have a garter snake that lives in a crack in the concrete of our window-well. We let him stay, especially since Nick has been gardening. They also eat mice. 🙂
Toby found him once and chased him around in circles IN the window well. He barely fit, and it was pretty hilarious, because we think Toby was trying to play with him. (We’ve caught him play bowing – at a frog.) Anyway, although the snake was not amused, he never tried to bite, just ran in circles until Nick saw what was happening and grabbed the dog. He must not have been too traumatized, as he still lives there…
If it had been Meadow or Leah though, I don’t think the poor snake would have had a chance. 🙁
I’m a live-and-let-live gal myself. Unless I’m sure something is poisonous or otherwise a nuisance, I generally leave it alone.
Fortunately this theory isn’t tested too often, since I live in a townhouse in a big city.
We have gremlins in our crawl space. Every now and then one of them farts near the bathroom vent and stinks up the bathroom a whole lot more than any human I’ve ever known. PEEE,-EWWWWW!! 🙁
I say leave the snake alone and let him eat the spiders, and whatever else lives in the wood pile with him. Just carry your camera at ALL times!
I don’t mind snakes as long as they are not the poisonous kind. When I lived in Texas years ago, I heard what sounded like a rotary sprinkler under the porch. I thought a water pipe had broken so I looked under the porch. And lo and behold! There he was. A big ol’ rattler rearing his ugly head! Thankfully, the dogs knew to stay away from him. And thankfully, he was far back enough that he didn’t strike me when I took a peek.
Holy Macaroni! Run for the hills
Benny & Lily
LOL! Run screaming eh? Guess I can’t blame you. 🙂
I hate to disappoint you Jodi, but I would leave him there. He’s harmless and he eats spiders and likely rodents too. At least he’s staying in the woodpile. They have been known to slither across our path at the dog park. Now that’s excitement! 🙂
Typist would have packed up and left the state!! She thinks she is brave putting up with the spider that she can’t reach and her other half refuses to put outside!
They are good…eat mice too….would i go near…def NOT. Lol
I call all snakes pisscutters, I don’t know how I came up with that but I don’t know one snake from the next so there all pisscutters. I don’t care for them! I don’t go out of my way to kill them but they don’t need to be in my space. That is a great picture.
Oh now I get it…lol. We get snakes in our woodpile at the cabin from time to time. I don’t like them, but I leave them be. Thunder has come across one now and again and usually he just stops and looks at it.
Bwhahahaha! Finally able to catch up and read the snake story. Geez Jodi, it’s just a little garter snake – you had me thinking it was something scary. FTR, you DO have reason to be more frightened by the spiders that live in your wood pile than that snake. As do your dogs.
As you can probably tell, I would leave the snake. Heck, I’d visit him. 😉 But I hate spiders with the searing heat of a thousand burning suns so there’s that…
Ugh….I don’t like spiders or snakes! We have snakes that hang out in my vegetable garden area, and this year there was one in my greenhouse! They usually startle me and make me scream, but they are all harmless here so I just move away from them (okay, run away maybe). I’ve always just tried to be sure the dogs didn’t see them. I seem to remember one of my cats walking around the corner of our deck with a snake in her mouth….that was a long time ago, but I was not impressed!
We just leave them alone though, and I’m always on the lookout for them in the areas where we see them.
That makes me feel very glad that our current fireplaces are gas and that the new apartment doesn’t have a fireplace at all. *shudders* snacks and spiders are so not my thing.
Yes. We’d leave it. We’ve seen several “good” snakes that aren’t poisonous since we’ve lived out here. We keep them, because (many people don’t know) they actually discourage the poisonous snakes in the area by depleting their food sources. Anything that helps keep away the next paragraph is considered WONDERFUL by us.
A couple of times we’ve also seen a couple of copperheads and water moccasins due to the creek. Those get killed as fast as possible. Luckily, so far, we’ve not encountered any rattlers.
If you don’t know what is around you, there are always federal and state wildlife resources and rangers to contact for a lesson. They’re happy to teach you about the area you live in, and education is part of what you pay taxes for.