Why did it have to be snakes?

You guys are gonna scare the poor lady half to death. LoriAnn, don't be scared of the country. Booner is correct. You have much more to fear from some of your urban neighbors. Sure, there are a few scary critters in the country, but you've already been living with one of the scariest (the brown recluse spider) and you probably didn't even know it. Just move out to a more rural setting and pretty soon you'll be eating catfish and growing your own tomatoes.
 
I once freaked when seaweed touched my foot. :unsure:
I was turning blue at a beach in Maine once (the color transformation comes automatically with ocean bathing in Maine), when a floating patch of seaweed literally engulfed me. Had to struggle to pull myself out of it. If I had been alone, and in over my head, I might still be drifting with the tides.
 
"Hey you all, watch this"! Ah the Redneck Mantra heard just before serious lapses of judgment are made.

LoriAnn do not let snakes and other wild critters decide where you live as they are more afraid than you. Snakes sense movement so just be careful where you step while outdoors.
Regards
David
 
My only close encounter with a snake was in Israel. We were coming down from some hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee when I stepped on something that didn't feel like dirt. I looked down to see a decent sized snakey wrapping itself around my foot, so I did a spasmodic kick and let out a squeal that I couldn't replicate unless someone kneed me in the nether regions, sending Mr. Snake flying. Not my favorite moment from the trip, to be sure.
 
Very cool! A Corn Snake and a Black Rat Snake. Neither are poisonous. I think Timber rattlesnakes and Copperheads are the only poisonous snakes around Gettysburg. Maybe back in the day there were other species.

And those are ENOUGH. I seriously doubt my gun would come out against a snake, no reason to further the gun control movement with a cell phone video of a hysterical fat man dumping a magazine in the ground screaming "SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE!!". However, if there's another incident at Devils Den where my son calls out "Hey Dad, there's a snake over here, so cool!" and I find my son and several "tourists" surrounding a copperhead who just wants to get away and is NOT happy, well.....

That was NOT in the parenting manual.....:hot::stomp::banghead:
 
Great googly moogly, no!

Ryan
Coward. Lol.

When I was in EMS, there were a bunch of us in a diner in Harrisburg for breakfast and us locals got scrapple. One guy had never heard of it, and one of the other medics, who grew up on a farm, was quite happy to tell him how he personally had made scrapple. Took us 15 minutes to get the green out of his face, and another 15 to get him to order some. In the end, he loved it. :D
 
Coward. Lol.

When I was in EMS, there were a bunch of us in a diner in Harrisburg for breakfast and us locals got scrapple. One guy had never heard of it, and one of the other medics, who grew up on a farm, was quite happy to tell him how he personally had made scrapple. Took us 15 minutes to get the green out of his face, and another 15 to get him to order some. In the end, he loved it. :D

Growing up in New York, I had no idea what scrapple was until we moved to Pennsylvania when I was a teenager and our neighbor graciously gave us some as a house warning gift. My dad still loves the stuff but the smell of it makes everyone else in my family gag.

Ryan
 
... With the numbers of men marching, along with horses and wagons, wouldn't most self-respecting snakes have left the areas where troops were encroaching on their habitat?

That's what I would have thought, too, @18thVirginia. Then I ran across this anecdote shared by a soldier in the 29th North Carolina:

“…we were ordered to Yellow River, Fla., near Pensacola Bay, as it was feared the Federals contemplated a flank movement. We went into camp about forty miles southeast of Pollard, on a beautiful plateau overlooking the river. Owing to the number of rattlesnakes in the vicinity, it was called "Rattlesnake Camp." We had a battle with the snakes on the evening of our arrival, and killed a dozen or more, several very large ones. As the ground was covered with pine knots and logs. Colonel Coleman had bonfires around the guard line all night, so we could see the reptiles and prevent their getting too close for comfort. In spite of our care. Captain Mount and I slept with a little "rattler" that had crawled under our blanket and was not discovered until next morning, when he was speedily killed."

By Lt. John M. Davidson, in "Histories of the several regiments and battalions from North Carolina, in the great war 1861-'65, Vol. II" edited by Walter Clark, Lt. Col. 70th NC, 1901
 
Francis T. Meriwether of Louisiana, Missouri, shared this reminiscence from Gettysburg with the readers of "Confederate Veteran" magazine:

"On the night of July 3 I was again with my old company, and we were stationed for picket duty on the extreme left of our army. Two of the boys, telling their experience since our separation, related that while on the summit of the Blue Ridge Mountains for the purpose of observation a rattlesnake had during the cool night entered their fly tent to share their blanket. We were stationed in the yard of a deserted farmhouse. A heavy thunderstorm arose, and I placed three fence rails against the fence, inclined so as to allow the water to run freely from my waterproof coverlet. After the storm had subsided, and while the rain was still dripping from the trees, I felt conscious of something crawling up under the cover by my legs. Still impressed with the horror of sleeping with a rattler, I clutched what I fancied might be one. But to my joy and surprise I discovered that the intruder was a poor, deserted, half-drowned pup evidently seeking a place to dry and warm himself. Being damp and chilly myself, I took the little fellow to my bosom, and we both slept till the sun had been up an hour or more."

~ Confederate Veteran, 1893, Vol. 21, p. 443
 
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