The time I killed the Copperhead

      I was standing in the boys’ room, arguing with my 9 year old son about the definition of the phrase “clean room” when the little three came running and yelling at the same time. Batman got the words out first.  

“Mom, there’s a snake in the yard!”    

     I don’t like snakes. Not even a little. I grew up in a part of the country that had very few snakes. I can only remember a handful of times that I even saw one. The ones that we did have were small and harmless garden or grass snakes. Nonetheless, I was terrified of them growing up. I saw one on the ground by my rope swing one June and didn’t play on the swing again all summer.   

     I do think I came by it honestly, my mother closes her eyes whenever one comes on TV. My dad always seems to need a glass of milk from the kitchen whenever Indiana Jones is on (you know that scene with all the snakes falling out of the walls? Ew).  There is a story about my uncle finding a harmless grass snake in his garage that scared him so badly that after he killed it, by running it over with his truck, he also chopped it up into pieces,  and then buried it out back.  

     When I moved to the south 

I assumed there were snakes. Because I didn’t see them on my  well groomed college campus, I didn’t worry about them. My first southern education about snakes came a few years later. I was riding with my now husband, who was just a boyfriend at the time, and one of his childhood friends. Both born and raised southern boys. 

     We were driving down the road and all of a sudden the driver stomped on the brakes, and my Man whipped around in his seat and yelled, “Back up! Back up! You missed him!”. Instantly, the one-ton dually pick-up I was riding in was being hurled backwards, then forwards again,  all as the driver was yelling, “Did I get him!?”. My Man was responding with  things like, “Get it again!” and “that sucker is six feet long!!!”

To say the Yankee in the middle seat was “confused” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

     After everything settled down, and we were headed down the road again, my Man explained to me there’d been a snake sunning himself in the road.   “When it’s over five feet long we kill it, even if it’s a black snake.”  he said .  I was still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of a snake being almost as long as I am tall when I stammered, “ What do you mean ‘even if it’s a black snake’? Are there some snakes you don’t kill?”

      At this point, the driver, who was very entertained by my Yankee ignorance,  joined the conversation and explained, “Black Snakes eat the poisonous snakes, so we like them, but when they get too big, they eat bigger things too, so we try to keep the population down.” 

    Fast forward almost twenty years.

     My fear of snakes if far less than it was years ago.   I have educated myself and my kids on how to tell a dangerous snake from a harmless one.    But it’s safe to say I’m still not a fan anything the slithers. 

     Looking at Batman I said, “What kind is it?”.  He looked  back at me with his bright blue eyes and said with all the certainty of a 7 year old said  “It’s a Copperhead, Mom, and it’s a big one.” My heart skipped a little bit because Copperhead snakes are poisonous, but Batman is only seven so maybe he’s wrong. 

     Either way, it needs to be checked out. So I pulled on my work boots, and we all headed out the front door. Me armed with a shovel, General behind me with his pellet gun, Edison with a hoe, Dutches with a garden trowel , Batman with a rake, and Thor with a rock. We all stopped at the edge of the driveway and looked down the rocky slope to the burn pile. Batman pointed to a spot about eight feet down the slope, “Look Mom, do you see him? He’s right there by that rock.”  

     I said a bad word in my head.  

     It was definitely a Copperhead, definitely a big one, and definitely too close to my home to be allowed to live. I looked at the shovel in my hands with its five foot handle and thought, “Nope.” I let General take a few shots with his pellet gun from a safe distance with unsuccessful results. “Okay.” I said, “you all stay here make sure he doesn’t move.” I ran back to the house, calling my husband at work as I ran.  

“Hello?”, he answered. 

“Hi, what gun do I use to kill a snake?” I almost shouted as I was unlocking the gun safe.

       I feel like I should stop here and acknowledge that he’s a good husband.  Not everyone would respond like he did. He calmly answered my questions and did not second guess my judgment about the situation, or how it needed to be handled. I love that about him.  

“Get the green shotgun.”

“Do I have to use the shotgun?” I whined.

“Yes.”

     To be clear, I can work a gun just fine and I’m a better shot than most.   I grew up target shooting with my Dad and Uncles and they taught me how guns work and how to handle them safely.  But I don’t like shooting shotguns, they are loud and they kick back terribly.     

       Armed with a shotgun in one hand and two shells in the other, I hung up the phone and headed back to the burn pile.  General meet me halfway back, “Mom,  I think it’s actually two snakes,” my oldest reported.

Great.

     I walked down the hill a few feet parallel to the snakes and instructed the kids to all line up and cover their ears. Loaded the first shell and cocked the gun. I set my feet apart to keep my aim steady, like my Uncle Bill Taught me.  Pulled the gun tight to my shoulder to try and minimize the kickback, took aim and fired.

    The whole area erupted with dust and rock shards as the buck shot hit. My shoulder started to throb a little.  I could tell the adrenaline surge was starting to make my knees feel shaky as I looked at the snakes bodies still moving. I ejected the casing,  loaded the second shell, yelled over my shoulder for everyone to cover their ears again, and fired a second time.  

     When the dust cleared, there were five kids all talking at once and jumping up and down with excitement, one mom with a sore shoulder, and two dead snakes.  

 

I still hate snakes.