Snakes!

One of my nieces works in a large department store in our area. The building is relatively new -only about 5 years old. There is a major highway in front of it and a large neighborhood behind it. A few weeks back, a baby snake ( they did not i.d. what kind of snake) was found inside the building. Scary!

Last week, some children were playing in one of the men's dressing rooms when they discovered a baby rattlesnake! Really scary!!

A couple of days ago, one of the salesclerks, was in the middle of the busy store when she looked down at the floor in front of the register and saw a 2 foot long rattlesnake! Horror!!!

The clerk started screaming and barely prevented a woman, hurriedly walking toward the register, from stepping on it.

They had no idea on where these snakes were coming from. Upon investigation, they discovered that the exterminator had left a cover open from a pipe coming into the building. They watched on camera where this bigger snake came out from the pipe under this main register. It slithered around to the front of the register and lay there watching people. Ewwwwww!!!

The scary thought is - are there any more?

The poisonous snakes in our area are more commonly copperheads, and rarely cottonmouths and.... rattlesnakes. We do occassionally see copperheads - mostly killed in the road but only twice in our yard and that was many years ago. That was before we fenced in most of the property around the back of our house for our pygmy goats and cleared out the field to the side for our orchard. We also have several cats - who keep the rat/mouse population to a minimum so the snakes have no food to eat around our house.

Cottonmouths are found around water. We do have creeks, ponds and lakes near but you won't find me in them most of the time. Those bad boys are extremely aggressive. I get the heebie jeebies just looking at holes in the side of the banks.

Rattlesnakes - I don't think I've even heard anyone say they've seen one around here in many years. Fortunately, I've never seen one except at the zoo.

Maybe I just need to get out and shop more.