I shared it with a co-worker the other day. I don't even remember how we got on the topic of snakes, but I showed her the picture below and told her the story below.
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| This beauty's name is Aquabella. She's a python, and she was very gentle. |
My Daddy's Mama lived right down the road from us. Actually, she lived at the end of our road.
To get to her house, you turn onto a small dirt road off of a bigger dirt road off of a secondary paved road. Our small dirt road ended in Granny's front yard. So even though her house was a half a mile away from ours, my brother and I were always free to walk or ride our bikes to her house because there wasn't any traffic on that road. Anyone out that far knew where they were going. You got to our house and Granny's house on purpose.
Needless to say, there were lots and lots of trees where I grew up. And one year, my parents and my Granny decided to sell the timber on their land to a paper company. They came in and cut all the trees they could use and replaced them with rows and rows and rows of pine trees. The company also gave us bluebird houses with report cards. They wanted to see how their deforesting and replanting affected the birds.
Each bluebird house had a flip-top lid with a hole drilled in the front and was mounted on a metal pole. We kept track of when birds were living in the houses, when they laid eggs and when the little birds left. Then we mailed in the postcards to the paper company.
One day, I was at my Granny's house. I was in my early teens, and by then, I was a little bit taller than Granny. I'm only 5'3" if that gives you any idea about Granny's stature.
She asked me if I would check on her bluebirds because she was too short to look over into the box. Somebody had checked it a few days before and told her there were eggs inside.
I went out to the box and tapped the side of it. If the mama bird was inside, this would be her cue to leave for a few minutes. No mama bird came out, so I tapped the box again, just to make sure. No bird.
I reached up and flipped the latch on the top of the box and lifted the lid. I took a deep breath, then blew it out. Granny always told us not to breathe inside the box. I had always heard that if you did, the mama bird wouldn't come back to the babies. I don't know if that's true or not, but I never took any chances.
So I blew out my breath, stood on my tiptoes and peeped over into the top of the box.
A black chicken snake popped up and just about grabbed my nose!
I staggered back and muttered a few words that my Granny had never heard me say. And it's amazing to me now that saying those words in front of her freaked me out just about as much as having a snake jump up in my face.
Granny was just as calm as she could be. She said, "The snake must have got inside and ate the eggs. Then he was too fat to get back out. Go inside and call your Daddy. He'll come take care of him."
I did as I was told, and Daddy did the dirty work.
Granny never mentioned my sailor's mouth to my Daddy. I guess she figured that if a snake jumped in your face, you deserved a break.
Granny always seemed unflappable. She was a steady woman who had a strong faith.
And I have to say that my faith was boosted that day, too. It wouldn't have killed me if that snake had bitten me, but being spared the pain of a bite was more than fine by me.
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