Learned something new
 

Not a hobby, and certainly not a pleasant learning experience and it's taken a few anti-anxiety pills to be calm enough to share... but you should always use caution when opening exterior doors in south east Georgia. Now it's not for reasons you may imagine like cultist baptists ready to attack, intruders, flying steroid taking cockroaches (aka palmetto bugs). It's not that you need to be especially weary of black widows or brown recluses believe me they're already in your home attics and walls and spinning their little webs under your beds.... and it's not even down where I always thought it was that you had to watch for in dealing with snakes...

For the past couple of nights I have let my cat in, and something has hit me each time, something cold and clammy just like the many many geekos and frogs around here, so I largely ignored it after the initial jump of something hitting me. Until this morning, when I finally looked to see what it was, I mean really how many times must a frog land in my hair before it learns... 2 times less than the pigmy rattlesnake I found curled up by my bare toes!!!! Thinking the snake must have already been there and forgetting about looking for the "frog" I grabbed our special kitty who had followed me on to the porch to let his brother in and firmly shut the door spending the next 2 hours huddled on the couch waiting for the DH to wake up.

He got up, went on to the porch, looked around and it was gone... all's fine I'm just over reacting as usual to the presence of a snake, he doesn't see it anywhere, he looked out the screen didn't see it on the walkway but knows I won't be satisfied until he "checks" so he opens the screen door and the thing smacks him on the back of the wrist before falling to the ground. Poor special kitty was scruffed once more non-too-gently by the DH and thrown inside again... while in horror I was stuttering out to the DH "why was it up?! How did it... why? Why? Why up?" His response was they can do that :eek: and with that answer I lost my mind for a bit... I know there's snakes that can climb trees, I do... but that pigmy's had a thing for parkour I NEVER would have dreamed.

Just one ore thing I dislike about this state... rain falls sideways never down, roaches fly, the perpetual sauna....etc... and now the parkouring pigmies, like the snakes around here haven't already found enough ways to torment me.

ugh!! I'll stay up north where the mosquitos are some of the worst pests...guess you have to open the door with a broom to sweep away the snakes?

I had to drive 500 miles to Ontario Canada to see my first rattlesnake, for an area that can have 8-10 feet of snow on the ground in the winter that just seems wrong!

When I was in Largo Florida in 2009 there was a couple of news reports about people getting bitten by pygmy rattlesnakes. One was a guy cutting his grass wearing flip flops, and the other was an old lady with bad eyes that thought it was a stick on the sidewalk.

That was my first and only time further south than Virginia Beach, I live in the country here and have a lot of snakes in my yard, but poisonous ones are 70-80 miles away.

It was kind of interesting to be sitting by the backyard pool in Florida and see a 5 foot long snake slither by! LOL

I have had a phobia of snakes since I was 3 yrs old. I know the whys and wherefores of it even though in concord venomous snakes were truly not a concern. But here! Cottonmouths, timbers, pigmies, mocosans and rarely coral snakes are EVERYWHERE! Every summer brings at least 3-4 venomous snakes right up to the house, countless other snakes throughout the yard and then there's all the ones you don't see. But falling out of doorways was still a first for me and I can only pray that it will never happen again or I don't think I'll ever be able to leave my house again lol

Well, that just creeped me out. I'm not big on snakes. We have rattlers all over. They stay hidden too. We once had a black Mexican King snake in the yard. It must have been 5 feet long. It was huge. I found out that they help keep rattlers away. I don't remember how as it was a number of years ago, but they are good snakes to have around. I chilled out a little when I heard that.

I don't like scorpions either. Those little guys are sneaky!!!! They hid in dark cool places. You know, the places you never think to check. DD27 got stung once when one was hanging out in her shoe. Needless to say, she didn't go to school that day. The own home we lived in had a number of them due to some nearby construction. They all migrated from the construction site. I had a friend tell me to get a black light and look for them at night. I never did because I don't think I would have every slept again. :D We learned to check our shoes and clothes carefully before putting them on.

My phobia of snakes has worsened over the years. I know it's irrational, but like you I live in a country / state that has some of the most poisonous / venomous reptiles / spiders etc in the world. I'd be looking at investing in moon suits �� if I lived where you do...

Evidently a number of King snake types are immune to rattle snakes bites and will eat them if they can.

Well I hate snakes so I guess we are staying up north with our blizzard conditions in the winter. We have coyotes in our neighborhood now, as well as voles, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits and toads. I haven't seen a snake in our neighborhood and I hope I never do.

So if you ever see me post about getting stuck in a snowdrift in December and complaining about it, remind me about your snakes down south.

No, bush or tree anywhere near the house, so... nope it crawled up the doorway or rather slithered up the gap between the door and jam. And I have one cat we let out and one house cat... neither works to keep away the snakes :(. But even with my fear of the legsless wonders, i don't wish to kill them all... i just don't want them inviting themselves into my home or slithering through my lawn, sunning themselves under my car's tire (on my side of the car!) I don't go trapsing through their homes or yards and just wish they would offer me the same curteousy. :p

It's not like I cleared the woods and built my house here and now am upset the snakes are in my yard... it's been here for a long time, but like every other animal around the snakes seem to think I'm a haven for them. Since it's not only snakes coming up to and onto my porch or even waltzing in the front door.... oh no! Every stray dog and cat knows to come here, birds, mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons, possums, lizards, turtles, deer even (thankfully the alligators haven't found me yet or followed me home at least, I have come across the odd few...)

I have a flower garden yes, but it's not like they're plants that are supposed to attract anything more than an odd humming bird or butterfly, and yet the deer love to hang out here, wild pigs as well and I live in a subdivision! Granted there's not much "city" to kingsland ga, but it's not the kind of "country living" where you should have to fear finding a wild pig rooting around your walkway in the middle of the afternoon. Or that leaving the front door open while you bring in groceries in the evening will lead to a three hour chase around the house trying to get a possum (or 5) chased back out the door.

But the deer, birds, lizards, turtles and all I can deal with and have no issues chasing a family of possum out of my house, or patiently waiting for the odd pig to move off (never try to shoo one they're mean buggers) but the snakes! :eek: the snakes I just can't handle :eek:

(And I've tried mothballs that was a record year for snakes in the yard... don't use them if you don't LOVE snakes)

I'm in Maryland , not the REAL South but last night there was a ring-neck snake (non-poisonous) in Mudroom.

About ready to pack my bags and go move to the Artic, I'll hang with the penguins and odd leopard seal :D.

You do know that the black adder (European adder) is the only snake that lives ABOVE the Arctic Circle? It's poisonous too. So, you might want to rethink your moving plans if you're wanting to avoid snakes.

Antarctica might be a better choice.

Oh, and I almost forgot, there's another place on the planet to go where there isn't any snakes.

Ireland.

They speak English, it gets cold, but the weather is fairly nice for a good part of the year, and there's a lot of fun touristy things to do.

edit

and after a little more googling (because even though I knew Ireland didn't have snakes, I thought it couldn't be the only one) I found the other places that don't have snakes. New Zealand, Hawaii, Greenland, Iceland, and the aforementioned Antarctica.

If it were me, I'd go to either New Zealand, or Ireland, or Hawaii. I wouldn't need a passport for Hawaii, but New Zealand actually sounds a lot more fun. Ireland would be cool because I'd be able to do a lot of genealogy research at the source.

Hawaii is too hot :( and they still get the sea snakes so I couldn't go chill at the beaches. heck Georgia is too hot lol, bit Ireland could be an option, too bad I'm one generation shy of just waltzing in and making my return to the old country. 4th gen Irish American the my only openly welcome 3rd gen. If only my folks had thought to move there when I was a kid rather than icky Georgia. But one day (like one day after I bury the DH) I'll make it there and find out how long they'll let me hide from the snakes 😝

As 3rd generation Irish armed with my Grandfather's birth certificate was going to adopt there but got pregnant with twins! Visiting Ireland still on my bucket list. No snakes is just icing on the cake!!!

My house is fine, as are the neighbors and my folks and aunt and uncle did fine too. No power or potable water for me, folks got power last night and my aunt and uncle had water from a well along with a generator but they also got power last night, so the DH is heading out now to borrow theirs. Not a lot of damage as far as structures go, a few business lost parts of their roofs, but nothing flattened, there's quite a bit of flooding and many many many trees down on power lines and even a few vehicles and homes, but we all survived it seems thus far. We run on ga power that covers the whole state and as of 11 am there was still 775,000 power outages :eek: but that is down from last nights update of 934,000 so their crew of 5,500 field worker are being quite the busy bees right now and after okeefenokee power finishes getting their customers up and running they'll be giving GA Power a hand.

Other than that though my house and the street I'm on looks like nothing more than a typical afternoon thunderstorm, next street over looks like someone bombed the place (poorly though since they missed the houses but caught all the trees). But st Mary's is a royal mess, again most houses were spared, but lots of flooding and trees are down everywhere, boats sunk and stranded on land it's horrible there will be a long time getting it cleaned up

Yeah nothing like coming across the float of fire ants when waters rise :(. We're still without water or power here, but my aunt has both so we went out there for a shower last night... better than her just having water she also has a water softener that I can't convince my DH to get me so it was an Awesome shower that let me get really really squeaky clean. But no ac last night with the rising humidity was a little crappy but honestly not too bad since the hurricane did bring cooler weather. But still just sitting around waiting for power

Woohoo! Although my aunt can't help sew because of her arm but she's letting us bring the machines over to sew at her place so progress can resume on the quilts while I continue to wait for power at my house ( and of course the ac and swimming pool there along with flushing toilets is another nice bonus :D )