Snakes on a Plain
(Part I)

Take a nice long look at our friend over there. I found her lying in our backyard sunning in the late-Spring sunshine late May of 2004. I was actually working in my office and from my second story window noticed something odd next to our garden hose. Since I grew up on a farm I had seen plenty of these hanging around the barn waiting on some unsuspecting rodent to happen by.

This particular snake is quite common here in the Southeast and serves a great purpose in controlling unwanted critters. This particular Black Snake (also known as a Rat Snake) is a female. I'll explain a little bit later how I know this.

She was minding her own business that morning but we had a fairly new puppy wandering about the yard and I didn't want our dog to become the lunch special of the day. So I went outside to check things out. She was quite friendly until I started snapping pictures. Before I had a chance to grab her she made a bee-line for the backyard deck and disappeared underneath it. That is when I first noticed several places Black Betty (yes, we named her..."ba-lam-ba-lam") was entering and exiting our cozy backyard retreat.

Let me back up just for a moment. Earlier that Spring we had some unwanted visitors living exactly where Black Betty had escaped to. For those of you that are regular readers you know that we live next to a old farm which harbors a variety of "wildlife," some wanted and some not-so-wanted. So we're used to finding the occasional drowned field rat in our pool or the Mouse-ka-teers making our garage home for the winter. So I did the usual baiting of rat-traps and figured they had worked for the most part.

Now take a good look at Black Betty once again. It's difficult to tell just how big she is from the picture. The garden hose next to her was an industrial-sized whopper we used to clean our pool deck. I would venture to guess that she was a good six feet long and perhaps three inches thick in girth. Evidently B.B. had found a reptilian buffet under our deck!

So that evening I finally broke the news to Joan that we had a fairly large snake living just outside our back door. Obviously she was not pleased with this news but I pointed out how our varmint problem had gone away and that Black Snakes are generally reclusive so we probably would never see her again.

A hall-pass was given to our new friend and I even cooked out on the grill just to prove none of us would be swallowed whole by B.B.

It just so happened that B.B. showed up just before Memorial Day weekend. I had finally gotten permission from Joan to take Jessie with me on a primitive camping trip for a couple of days. Again those of you who venture here already know I love the outdoors - particularly backpacking and camping in the mountains just an hour or so north of home. The plan was to leave on Friday and return Sunday afternoon. We would meet up with my camping buddies, Cletus and Freebird (you still believe I'm not a redneck?) with Freebird's two youngest in tow. Destination: the base of Sam Knob within Shining Rock Wilderness which covers a good bit of the Pisgah National Forest. Essentially we're in the middle of pristine North Carolina mountains far from cell phones, TVs, radios, even toilets. You can imagine the lecture I received from Joan about bringing her baby girl back home alive. We obviously covered everything from ticks to poison ivey including how to avoid water snakes.

This is base camp for the weekend. Me and Jessie camped in the tent pictured here. We were expecting rain (which we got) so we "tarped up." The "old man's chair" belongs to Cletus.

We broke all the rules within the first 10 minutes of camping. Jessie and the two other kids lived in the creek all weekend.

Proud Dad watches Jessie chow down on some Vienna Sausages: the energy source for true hikers and woodsmen...er....woodspeople?

Jessie watches Freebird pass out after chasing the kids to the top of Sam Knob (an elevation of 6,000 feet).

Cletus asked us to bury him at the top and take care of Jo-Jo for him.

So me and Jessie had a most excellent weekend on our first Father-Daughter camping trip. We were exhausted and happy! I was so worried she'd hate the experience and never want to do it again. Instead if we even hint about camping (primitive or in our pop-up) Jessie is already stuffing her pack with a sleeping bag and several sets of socks.

To be continued....