Bring on Winter

Friday I loaded up on the four wheeler and headed abroad for a day in the woods. What little did I know it would be a day of a few snake encounters....

I roll up in camp looking like the queen of the wild with my hair all tossed up on top of my head, my Arkansas Razorback golf cap on (How bout them HOGS?? LOL) , muck shoes and camo's not really knowing what I was fixing to get myself into....

After visiting with the natives, we all headed Northwest to venture off on Burnt Mountain to put up a deer stand, and this is where I encountered the first snake, lying in the sun on an embankment minding its own business. As hard as I tried to ignore him, he had his cold lil beady eyes locked in my direction. I rolled past him on the 4 wheeler slowly, for God only knows the trouble he would have caused if he had of darted out and under me...so I pointed him out to my followers so they'd be aware of him lying there sunning.

Here...let me introduce you, this is Mac....all I can say, both of us are lucky right now, for I don't know who'd been hurt worst if he had moved in my direction. Mac is about 5 feet long, nasty looking but harmless....



So...as this day unravels, I forgot about the chicken snake and moved on to more important details of the day, such as which tree the stand needed to be on, 12' foot or 8' foot high...which direction it needed to face...and so on. And as we were rounding up our big adventure of stand placement and chigger gathering some three hours later, I took a seat on side of the mountain trail to rest, scanning the ground as I settled. All was clear.

Unbeknowst to myself, Rex was trying to warm himself up nearby in what little sun he could find, and using a pine limb as camoflauge to hide himself. Rex is a brave snake....for he didn't see fear death, nor see it in his eminent future as I did, when I discovered him.

Meet Rex....



Rex was unusual for a Copperhead, he was a rather large one, a lil over 3 feet in length. Shocking to say the least when he was discovered to be lying nearby, and especially after I had done stepped over him once, to have a friend of ours step over him, kick the log in which he was lying next too, then for him to have the audacity to come slowly slithering out pissed off. Yes, Rex had a nasty disposition....(Did you know that a Copperhead will beat its tail to imitate a Rattlesnake? I didn't till then.., maybe they don't...but this one did!)

I won't share the details of Rex's death, but lets just say it was humane, because if it had been my feet he'd slithered between mad, I'd stomped him to death trying to get away. One of us was going to die...be it him or me...but I'd been leaving that mountain....with no where to go.

After that encounter, I decided I had enough for the day, and it was time to leave more gracefully than I had entered or stayed. So I rode out of the mountain trail with my feet held high on the front fenders....as well as my head. LOL

I'm ready for cold weather!! Bring on Winter!!!! Snakes go hibernate!!