The way to the farm is a narrow dirt path, packed hard as concrete, that curves around the trees, up a hill. Near the bottom of the path, there’s a stone spring house that flows into a tiny brook. This spring also feeds the farm pond that’s a few steps away.
Passing through this spot now, between the spring house and the pond, a specific evening last spring is called to mind. On that day, Silas and I trotted down the path, enjoying the new sensation of warm sun, headed home after working in the gardens. At the top of the hill, my challenge of, “Race you!” had the same effect as lighting a cannon fuse, and Silas shot down the slope.
In this story, there are two indisputable facts. First, Silas won the race by a landslide. Second, I saw the snake first. Hidden as it was in the dry, tan leaves, and wearing a coating of dust, Silas did not see it in the middle of the path. “Silas!” I shrieked. But the warning was mistaken as playful in our mother vs. son dash. His little boots with the green tractors with yellow tires landed right in the center of the snake’s coiled dark brown and tan body. For a half second, Silas, still unaware, turned and smiled at me, the snake looped around his feet. “Snake Silas!” I screamed, pointing. I don’t know my snakes. I just knew that this was the fattest one I’d ever seen, and my five-year-old was in the middle of it. In the other half of that second, Silas looked down, screamed, and stamped his boots in panic.
To the snake’s credit, it didn’t do much of anything. Silas leapt free and bolted toward the road. The snake was now the least of our worries. Silas wouldn’t hear a vehicle coming over his own cries, and he wouldn’t see it before it was too late. But even in the clutches of terror, his characteristic good sense prevailed, and he skidded to a stop at the edge of the road, turning to me with tears streaking down his red face, arms outstretched to be lifted.
Having heard Silas’s screams, Jason came running down from the farm. Bolting down the hill, he almost didn’t heed my raised hand, trying to stop him from making the same mistake we’d just made.
My first and worst fear had been a rattlesnake. Although a rattler would be unusual in this county, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. When Jason took a closer look at it, there was no rattle. Based on its coloring and stoutness, and proximity to water, it could have been a water snake of some kind.
Later research pointed us toward the possibility of a hognose. But we don’t recall the upturned snout that gives the snake its name. They are interesting creatures, though, with a mild demeanor, and notable defenses, so let me share a bit about them. When threatened, they lift their heads off the ground and flatten their necks to give a cobra appearance. They also play dead, flopping on their backs when troubled. They even let their tongues loll out and release a foul smell. And if all this fails, they’ll throw up their stomach contents and twist around in partially-digested toad. The toad toxins make predators suddenly lose their appetites.
This is a photo of an eastern hognose snake. PHOTO FROM PAHERPS.COM.
Whether it was a water snake, a hognose, or something else, the incident made Silas understandably very weary of slithering creatures. To try and ease his fears, we talked about the encounter, and did our best to turn it into his own personal folktale: Silas & the Snake. We can get him laughing now about the time he “danced on a snake’s head,” but his shoulders still give a little a shimmy when he thinks of snakes.
We didn’t want a fear of snakes to take too deep a root in him, because with gardens, come snakes, if you’re lucky. We need a serpent’s stealth to help with the voles who steal transplanted lettuce and broccoli overnight (holy vole-y). After replacing about 200 lettuce heads in early April, I leaned down to snatch up my trowel and hissed to the voles hiding under the landscape fabric, “Snakes are going to eat you.”
Once, we watched a rather small garter snake eat a frog. What a long, gruesome process. From beginning to end, the snake was as helpless as its meal. Locked around its prey, the snake had absolutely no visible reaction to the three humans crouching over it. We expected a big lump to form in the snake, but as the frog’s slippery shanks and toes slipped from sight, the garter remained sleek as ever.
Last year, we stored a few cage traps in the Little Tunnel. Just about every day, there were two decent-sized snakes who liked to curl up in their own private cage to snooze. I found this pair comical, and appreciated always knowing where they were.
Garter snakes also have a tendency to cozy up under big heads of lettuce. In the middle of spring, when the lettuce heads are extra huge around here, I wear gloves and peek beneath the leaves before reaching under with the knife.
Snakes are so helpful on a produce farm that some growers release them in their rows. We’ve always been lucky to have quite a few. But we’re probably down one deeply offended serpent who prefers to live as far as possible from rude youth and screaming mothers.
~ Stella
P.S. Let me give a description of the snake we encountered on the path. If you have any insight into what kind it may have been, please write us at plottwistfarm@gmail.com. The snake was stout. It seemed bigger because it was so fat, but it was probably around 4 feet long. It had a sort of banded coloring, with alternating dark brown/black strips and lighter tan strips.