The man who mows our grass came by this evening to pick up his check and ran with his truck over a 2 1/2 foot copperhead snake in our driveway. It was clearly an adult and it was a beautiful snake with tan and brown hourglass markings. It was still moving and a couple of blows to the head with a stick put it out of its misery.

Copperheads are common here in North Carolina, some say one per acre in a healthy forest. I showed the dead snake to the children, so they know what it looks like, and to stay away from any snakes that look like that. The children also know to not mess with any piles of debris in the woods, because that is where the snakes like to hang out.

I also tell the children to stay on the path in the forest, so they see where they step. Yet, I also don’t want to discourage them to play in the woods. The snakes are shy, and our cats probably drive them away, too. And I really think that the kids need to enjoy playing in the woods – they just need to keep their eyes open.

[Update: These guys (PDF) say there can be up to four copperheads per acre!]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Mother Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.