Man-Eating Snake!!!!

This past weekend Jim, Luann, Catherine, Sam (the dog), and I all headed to South Texas for a weekend getaway. We always enjoy going down there because you are never sure what you will see and also the food in that region is great. When we normally we start to drive through the brush we see deer, quail, turkeys, and a huge variety of birds and are always on the lookout for something new. (On a side note Catherine was telling one of her friends about all the wildlife we see at the ranch and reported that there are Caribou and Spring Squirrels. She was thinking of the exotics that are on the ranch but could not think of their actual names which are gazelle and Springbucks.) Anyway, we are always thinking that we are going to come up on a rattle snake but in the many trips that we have taken down there we have not once seen a rattler.

So it is about dusk and we are heading back to the house for the night after a great evening of riding around and looking at the deer and other animals. Well Catherine and I are up in the lookout seats on top of the truck and Jim and Luann are in the cab with Jim driving. Catherine and I are looking around and all of a sudden we see this HUGE snake stretched across the entire road. We started yelling "SNAKE, SNAKE!!!" Well our driver was looking around for deer sheds and not right in front of him. You would think that when we started yelling he would stop right away, but no. He was trying to find the snake and in the process did not stop the truck until we were right on top of the coiled up snake. At this time I think, this is it, this is how it ends. I was positive that this man-eater snake was going to crawl up into the truck, bite me, and then have me for dinner. I am 110% horrified of snakes. So now we have to tell Jim to back up and I am sure that in the excitement of Catherine and I that he could not understand a word we were saying because we were both sure that this snake was now on its way to get us.

We finally backed up and right in the middle of the road in the "I am going to eat your lunch" pose was this snake. Well Jim gets out, grabs his gun, and shoots. Needless to say, his first attempt was a failure. The gun did not even fire. Now I am thinking that this snake has called its snake friends and we are all doomed for sure.

Try #2: Successful. Jim just blew the middle of the snake into pieces and exposed the rat that was the snakes dinner. Then the rat ran off into the brush thankful we had saved it before it was too late. (Ok, that last part did not really happen, but that would have made for a good blog.) Now the snake is wondering why he cannot move his rear end. Jim shoots two more times, aiming for the head (I think) but hits the body instead. Regardless of what the intended target was Jim was blowing this snake into smithereens. After 5 shots this snake was still slithering all around and rolling into a ball and then trying to slide away.

So we watch the snake until it is not moving anymore and head back to the house. As Catherine and I are looking on the trip back in we think that every stick laying in the road is a snake, but we only saw one that night.

The next morning Jim and I head out to look around some more before we go to church and to check to see if the snake is still there or if something has eaten it during the night. We stumble upon the snake and notice that something has eaten the rat that was in it stomach but the snake was still intact. Jim grabs a piece of paper towel and holds up the snake for a photo opt. As you can see from the picture this snake was over 6 feet long. However, after a diagnosis from Catherine on the breed of the snake, we find out it was a Bullsnake and not the deadly Rattlesnake. Still we thought that our lives were in danger when we first saw this monster.

I also added the pictures of the weekend on www.ranchhousedesigns.com/southtexasranch. Check out all of the wildlife that we saw!