Weird and Scary


 
RichPB (richlife) said:
I gotta say that nothing scares me more than cold and snow. I lived in the Vermont mountains for two years in early high school. No Way! Afterwards, mid-, windy thirties in Fayetteville, NC, had me swearing I would never again complain about heat. In 60 years I haven't!
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I grew up in Edmonton Alberta where we could get -40F. We have a cabin near the Cold Lake airforce base in Northern Alberta. My wife and I went up there one winter weekend to go icefishing. It was -48F. Our cabin only has a woodstove for heat. It took 12 hours to get to 32F!
 
When we moved to the Sierra foothills in 1984, we rented for a few years before deciding to buy. The house we rented had a swamp cooler in the window just above the headboard of our bed. One night I woke to the nastiest smell ever. Apparently, one of our dogs got hold of a skunk right under the swamp cooler, which was running. I don't mind the odor from a roadkill skunk, but this was way too close.

Other than that, my experience with skunks was good. Had one almost eating out of my hand until our toddler daughter fell off of a chair right next to me and scared it away. They often came very close when we spent time outdoors but never sprayed. We were always careful not to startle them.

The area was also inundated with rattlers. One morning I was kneeling down next to a raised bed, pulling weeds, when I felt something on my thigh. I watched the young rattler slither over both of my legs and exit the garden into tall grass. After about 18 years there, I decided that the people who got bit were either very unlucky or stupid.
 
k walsh said:
I grew up in Edmonton Alberta where we could get -40F. We have a cabin near the Cold Lake airforce base in Northern Alberta. My wife and I went up there one winter weekend to go icefishing. It was -48F. Our cabin only has a woodstove for heat. It took 12 hours to get to 32F!
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Good for you if you can stand it. Brrr, shiver! But I understand that not many people share my predilection for just sitting and stewing in really hot, steamy weather. Maybe with a fan, but that's just a refinement. ;)
 
Bob Bailey said:
When we moved to the Sierra foothills in 1984, we rented for a few years before deciding to buy. The house we rented had a swamp cooler in the window just above the headboard of our bed. One night I woke to the nastiest smell ever. Apparently, one of our dogs got hold of a skunk right under the swamp cooler, which was running. I don't mind the odor from a roadkill skunk, but this was way too close.

Other than that, my experience with skunks was good. Had one almost eating out of my hand until our toddler daughter fell off of a chair right next to me and scared it away. They often came very close when we spent time outdoors but never sprayed. We were always careful not to startle them.

The area was also inundated with rattlers. One morning I was kneeling down next to a raised bed, pulling weeds, when I felt something on my thigh. I watched the young rattler slither over both of my legs and exit the garden into tall grass. After about 18 years there, I decided that the people who got bit were either very unlucky or stupid.
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Sorry to say, but I tend to agree. If you have circumstances like that, it really pays to be attentive and learn something about those circumstances. You practically have to go out of your way to get bitten by a copperhead. Not seeing it in the low light, no wonder it got pissed and lashed out when I stepped on it!
 
RichPB (richlife) said:
Sometimes things happen that you just don't expect -- like @LMichaels medicine issue.

Last night just after full dark, I stepped out into the small courtyard that ends at my grill. I mainly wanted to see how the two solar lanterns looked there newly hung outside the doorway since there is no other light in that area. The lanterns do cast a nice, soft, yellowish glow, but I didn't get to see the "look". They don't shed enough light for me to see the unexpected. A couple steps in I felt a small prick in my flip-flopped foot (middle toe) and seemed to stumble over something that shouldn't have been there. A little shocking to look back in the dim light and see a coiled copperhead waiting for another strike. Fortunately, I was then beyond it's reach, though as I slipped by to reach for a rake, it tried again. It was a good-sized copperhead, hard to tell length all coiled up, but clearly a fat, mature snake over 3 feet long. With the rake, I was able to pick it up at distance and fling it over the fence into the woods where it belongs.

Ah, yes, the foot. It was clear to start that somehow it had not actually embedded its fangs, but just sort of bounced off with just shallow, surface-skin deep marks. Did it hit the thong and deflect? Did tripping over it cause a miss? I don't know, but I didn't seem get a dose of venom. Doing a quick internet search, I confirmed that if I had gotten a venom injection it would quickly HURT and there was no pain. So I skipped the trip to the ER and finished watching the rather weak western I had in progress. This morning all is well, but I did get a closed up pic of my foot that you can see below. I circled the two fang nicks which are about 1/4" apart. The left side on didn't even have blood, but last night showed a bit of redness through the skin.

A new priority will be to get a real light out there as well as trying some home made snake deterrent (ammonia water and/or Epsom salt around the small yard. It's funny. We lived deep in the woods nearby for over 30 years, and while I've seen plenty of copperheads (some really up close and personal!), I've never had a striking encounter (though one of my dogs did). Living here in suburbia for six months, we've already had two copperhead "incidents" (the other was a young, probably mated pair looking for a den in our yard -- again, over the fence). For years, I backpacked alone all through the NC/TN/VA mountains and took the time to learn about venomous snakes. Copperheads are the least worrisome and are very non-aggressive. But you probably should avoid stepping on them...

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Yikes, Rich. That is a nightmare of mine. Glad you're okay.
 
Tim Campbell said:
Based on that picture, where was the culprit?
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Over the top of the fan, you can see a corner of the house and 11 ft beyond, another wall. The little court yard is around there.

You can also see there the top of a bare 4x4 post which is where I'm going to hang my grill cabinet when I get it refinished (now finally top priority).

Here, right between the black storage box (grill cover) on the left and the smoker on the right the courtyards is 11x8'.

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Looking last night, there was enough light to see it but I was focused on looking back to see the solar lanterns and, as Sheila said, coming from the interior brightness. Ivy ordered a good LED light to help a
Which will also hang over my grill when the days get short.
 
😄 I have such great memories of the Smokies-- I'm jealous! Though I do have to admit that at least 3 of my scariest events (the skunks are not one, that's just terrible smell). Let's see: all night bear encounter (including snarling 10 feet directly over my head), a log foot "bridge" falling a foot at one end while I was trying (succeeded) to cross a frigid snow-melt swollen stream, and the two weirdos I met at a shelter on the AT who kept talking about how they could sneak up during the night and slit my throat. Yeah, special, not so good, times.

These are just 3 of the 20 or so times in my life that I thought I might not survive. Most were just happenstance and not so exciting. But really, I don't know how I made it to 75. I feel like one of the luckiest people alive.
 
What a near miss.

We used to put mothballs under our hunting camp to discourage snakes. I don't know if it actually works but I do know I never saw a snake there.

Last year there was a juvenile copperhead about 1 ft long on my front porch. Maybe a bit longer. That was a surprise. They are easy to spot with the chartreuse tail. My wife's little shih Tzu grabbed a juvenile Copperhead at the park down the street from our house once when being walked and was shaking it.... My wife didn't know it was a poisonous snake at the time until she looked it up later. Then she freaked out. I was out of town at the time but she googled snake and yellow tail and that's immediately what popped up. Yup.
 

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Had some sort of snake in the basement of our old house about 10 years ago. My son and I tried to capture it with a lacrosse stick and a 5 gallon bucket. Snake wouldn't have any of it and it bolted somewhere down there. Two days later one of my dogs was down in the basement barking like crazy...there's the snake coiled and hissing. I had box of these so I dispatched it. Not something I prefer but I'm not playing hide and seek on the snake's terms either.076683037909_R2.jpg
 
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