Photo at right: Crippled Grandmother's House where the snakes were in the pantry.
BATS IN THE BELFRY?
WE HAD SNAKES IN THE PANTRY.
Although there were bats congregating during the day in some of the outbuildings on the family farm in the Yellow Creek Valley, more reptiles inhabited the environs than bats.
We had the “run of the mill” snakes which were not harmful to humans, garter snakes, king snakes, black racers, chicken snakes and other types of snakes labeled with our special rural labels; however we also had some poisonous vipers that would kill a human in a heartbeat.
Among the reptilian species to “watch out for” was, the Cottonmouth Water Moccasin, (Agkistrodon piscivorous conanti); Timber Rattlesnake, (Crotalus horridus) and the dreaded Copperhead, (Agkistrodon Contortrix).
Whether or not we wandered into the woods or high weeds, the snake’s habitat, we could also find the creatures inside our dwelling places, our habitats.
On a warm Summer’s Sunday Morning in the early 1920s, Bell Adams, my grandfather, was preparing to start a fire in the wood burning cook stove. Bell’s wife Addie, was at the “hen house” preparing to open the doors for chickens to egress. Assorted knives were stored in a crude container beside the “hen house” door to facilitate opening feed sacks.
Behind the cook stove, an enormous wooden kindling box had been installed to handle large quantities of hardwood to feed the fire. Fires were built in the stove in the mornings and continued burning all day until cooking was finished in the evenings
As Bell Adams reached over the side and into the wood storage box to retrieve a piece of “kindling” to start the morning fire, a Copperhead seized his hand and injected the deadly venom..
“Addie, I’m snake bit”, Bell yelled from the kitchen, and Addie stationed at the hen house door, reached and grabbed a chicken with one hand and a butcher knife with the other.
As Addie ran to the house, she inserted the knife into the anus of the chicken and split the bird “wide open”. Reaching her husband she plunged his hand into the chicken’s carcass and yelled for her youngest son to mount one of the horses and “head out” as fast as he could ride, to Dr. Hunt and tell him about Bell.
When Dr. Hunt arrived, the chicken carcass had turned grass green from the poison drawn from the wound. Dr. Hunt remarked, “The chicken carcass, in all probability, is what saved Bell’s life”.
During the remainder of Bell's life, due to tissue and muscle deterioration, use of his damaged hand was limited.
The family had dogs that fought with snakes when they happened upon them by accident, got bit and their heads would swell to four times the normal size, but they always recuperated from the bite.
Every venture into the hills or fields, would be accompanied with a verbal caution to “watch out for snakes“. During the hot, humid, hazy days of the Southern Summers, reptiles were constantly in the forefront of my mind.
Blindly reaching into a hen’s nest without first being sure only eggs lay in wait, I encountered, what felt like a piece of rubber hose, until I pulled it from the nest and found a chicken snake in my grasp. The experience very well could have revealed a Copperhead or Rattlesnake. Experience is a unique teacher. You are given the test first and then you are taught the lesson. I learned to look first when gathering eggs.
Early one summer morning, the cripple grandmother was in her pantry preparing to make biscuits. Down in the flour bin, ready to strike, lay a coiled Copperhead; the snake was removed and destroyed, biscuits were baked and breakfast was set on the table as usual. Life went on.
When retiring for the night, before the coal oil lamps were extinguished, the covers would be turned back on the bed and pillows would be disarranged to inspect and ascertain no reptile was in the bed. There were folks we knew, who, while laying in their beds had actually been bitten by snakes.
Youth in the Yellow Creek Valley learned at an early age, the art of traversing the fields, hills and woodlands circumventing the lair of the reptile.
Our feelings were the only good snake was a dead snake. Times have changed. Environmentalists now are teaching the necessity of the reptilian species for rodent control and other balances of nature.
Personnel from the Wildlife Conservation Department are dropping rattlesnakes back into the wooded areas by helicopter to repopulate what was diminished previously by farm folk. Where in the past, a bounty was placed on poisonous reptiles; a fine is now levied on humans who are caught killing rattlesnakes.
I know hornets are necessary, but I want them to build their nests away from where I live, the same goes for wasps and other stinging insects. I don’t want to find a bat roosting in my bedroom and I definitely don’t want to turn back the covers and find a snake in my bed.
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