I know a lot of you saw that snake photo of mine on the cover of the Courier News a couple of weeks ago. That is, by the way, a spotted king snake, although I have been calling them rock snakes for years. They are not poisonous, and do not even bite if you don't pester them. We found this out the hard way.
King snakes eat other snakes, and we absolutely did want him in the yard for that reason. But we also allow other non-poisonous snakes to remain in our yard unmolested because they eat rodents and insects. In the yard is one thing. In the house is something different altogether.
Before I start spinning this tale, let me say something about household plumbing. This is something I know a little about, because my father was a plumbing and heating contractor. It is impossible, if all the pipes and so forth are in good working order, for any large critter to come up into your home through the plumbing. There has to be a breach in the system somewhere that is not supposed to be there. And because of the way a toilet works, it is just about impossible even then for something to come up there. It is more likely if you do have a breach to get a mouse, or something like that, in your sink or bath tub.
Anyway, that being said, it was the day a couple of weeks ago when all that rain moved in. Steve was home for lunch and I was just getting ready to put the lunch dishes in the dishwasher. I opened the dishwasher door, pulled out the top rack ... and something moved. And there, big as life, was that king snake, looking at me and weaving back and forth.
I hollered at Steve, told him we had a visitor in the dishwasher. He yelled back from the living room that I needed to throw the cat in the dishwasher and let him catch the mouse. I answered him back: "It's not a mouse."
I won't repeat in this column the exact words he used when he walked into the kitchen and saw the snake, now sticking its head out the door of the dishwasher and trying to figure a way out into the kitchen. After a very colorful discussion about how we were going to get the critter out and back outside where he belongs, Steve finally just gave up, reached inside and picked it up. The snake, however, had other ideas and apparently did not want to leave its comfy new hidey-hole. He wrapped his tail around the rack and there was no way he was letting go. Finally, Steve stopped pulling on the snake, and after a minute the snake started to pull itself up onto Steve's hand. I held the door open, Steve walked outside, set him down beside a flower bed, and the snake just moseyed on into the flora.
Turns out, there is a relief cap on the outside drain. Steve was doing something involving cleaning out the drain the night before, and left the cap off. You can pretty well bet THAT won't be happening again!
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Now on to another nature issue, the big cats at the Aeroplex. There have always been big cats out there. There used to be a couple of mating pairs when the Air Force base was still here, and the base security unit protected them and made sure no one molested them. Then, the base was turned over to the city and a group of folks, who will not be named in this column, decided to go out and take pot shots at them. I was new at the Courier News then, and my son was also working as a photographer there. Some of you may remember that. Anyway, we heard this on the scanner for a couple of nights, and decided to put an end to it. So both my sons and I went out there, found the "individuals" spotlighting, looking for the cats. We turned the car lights on them, pulled out our cameras and started taking photos.
These people knew me, knew I was taking their picture for the paper, and they packed up and moved on. My sons and I drove through the area every night for weeks, and kept an ear to the scanner, but never saw or heard them out there again. The sad thing is, we never saw or heard of those cats being out there after that, until the article in the Courier News last week.
Folks, those cats lived out there in peace for decades, had babies, hunted, did not kill anyone's dog or cat. There is no reason to panic. Because we have a wildlife refuge in the area, we are blessed to have creatures like that living among us. I just hope my good friend Blytheville Police Chief Ross Thompson will prevent any "individuals" from getting out there and trying to hunt those beautiful animals again.
And if you are one of those folks who move to rural areas and complain because your neighbors keep livestock; one of those who is insisting the cats be "hunted down and contained," perhaps you should consider a more urban setting? Wildlife is one of the perks of living in the country. They were here first. Get over it.
plenbooks@live.com