Yesterday was a very sad day for me.  You see, I lost the best gardening partner I have ever had; my wife.  Now before you get all teary eyed, realize that she did not die.  No, Sally is still very much alive.  However, something happened yesterday that has me convinced that her gardening days are over.

Since yesterday was an uncharacteristically cool and cloudy July day, Sally and I decided that it would be the perfect time to catch up on some much needed weeding in the flower beds.  Sally and I are a great little weed pulling team.  We have worked these beds enough together that we can very quickly and efficently strip a bed of all unwanted plant material.  Yesterday was no exception.  Spurred on by the cool temps, we quickly built up a nice pile of weeds.  The pile was bigger than either of us could comfortably carry to the burn pile so I went to the garage and got out the wheelbarrow.  When I reached down and picked up the pile I was VERY surprised to find a CORAL SNAKE slithering through the pile of weeds in my hand!  Now I am not a snake hater.  Heck, I am not even scared of most snakes.  But this was different.  This one could kill me and that realization occured to my brain as soon as it saw those bright bands of color gliding through my hands.

Luckily for me, coral snakes are not very aggresive.  If there had been a copper head or rattler in that pile of weeds I would have been very bit very quickly.  However, this little guy only wanted to get as far away from me as quickly as he could.  Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t fast enough.  I never kill snakes; unless they are poisonous!  And since coral snakes are the most poisonous snake in North America, this guy had to die.

There are lots of myths and wives tales concerning coral snakes.  The most common one goes like this “Because of their small size, they can’t bite you except in little skinny places on your body like a little finger or the flap of skin between your thumb and index finger.” THIS IS FALSE!!!!  A coral snake can and will bite you anywhere you give him an opening.  If you try and pick up a coral snake by its tail, it will climb its own body to give you a bite that is at the least, painful and at its worst, deadly.  So never, ever try and pick one up by the tail, even if you think it is dead.  Also remember that when a snake dies, it’s muscles twitch and contract for quite a while after you kill it (this guy twitched for over an hour).  Because of this, snakes can actually still bite you after they are dead.  Due to this, you should never, never, never pick one up by the tail unless you are certain it is “dead still” or it’s head has been removed and disposed of.  It would be awfully embarrassing to get to heaven and have to explain to St. Peter that you got killed by a bite from a dead snake!

All joking aside, finding this snake in my flower bed is very bad news for me.  Because of this little incident, I am certain that I have forever lost my wife as a weeding partner.  Sally is deathly afraid of snakes.  I can no longer brush off her fears and tell her there is nothing out there to worry about.  She now knows very well that there are things out there that can kill her and she is in no hurry to die.  So, thanks to this brightly colored, 25″ long snake, my gardening work load has been increased. Not only have I lost my partner, but my own output will be greatly reduced because now, each time I get on my knees to pull weeds, I will be doing just as much snake hunting as weed pulling!