SNAKE!

Our neighbor across the street is Dr. Sean Bush from Discovery Channel's shows Venom ER and I Was Bitten. He is an envenomation specialist, and an ER doctor at Loma Linda University. He is also an incredibly nice guy!

Last night was a fundraising gala for Loma Linda and "A day with Dr. Bush" was auctioned off to help raise money for the University. He took this albino Burmese Python named Popcorn with him to the gala. The snake belongs to a friend of his and he is returning it tomorrow. He invited us over to see it before he takes it back. It was awesome! Abbey and Megan kept their distance except for a quick touch. Emily wouldn't even consider touching it. She stood about 5 feet away the whole time.

I told him my snake stories... I think he was impressed! :)

Snake Story #1

First of all, my dad and my Uncle Steve, have always been "snakey, wild animal-ly, outdoorsy" kind of guys. Well, one Easter, (I think I was about 11 or 12) we were at my grandparents' house for Easter dinner. My Uncle Steve had caught a baby rattlesnake and was keeping it in a terrarium. While we were there, he found a California King Snake in the front yard. King snakes are a constrictor, and they can tolerate the venom of rattlesnakes. My uncle thought it would be cool to put the two snakes together to see what would happen.

Well, the two snakes fought. They both would coil up, the rattler would strike. The king snake just kind of waved back and forth. The rattler would strike again. He would hit the king snake repeatedly. We watched as small beads of venom would kind of squeeze back out of the bite site. The king snake just waited patiently for the rattlesnake to get tired. Once he did, the king snake got a hold of a part of him and started squeezing. He just coiled and wrapped himself around the rattlesnake until he was dead. He then proceeded to eat his Easter dinner as we ate ours. YUM!

Snake Story #2

When I was growing up, we lived out in the country. We lived on a many acre avocado farm. One day, our friend Ethan came running down the hill behind our house, yelling for my dad. He was screaming that his dad, Dan, was pinned by a rattlesnake. My dad grabbed a shovel and sprinted back up the hill with Ethan right behind him. A few minutes later, all three of them came back down the hill. My dad was carrying the headless body of an enormous rattlesnake. He had chopped off it's head with his shovel and then buried it. He put it's body in a box. He said something about skinning it and making a "hat band" out if it. (Yes, if you go back a few generations, we are from Arkansas.)

Well, for the next several hours, all of us kids watched that snake's reflexes coil up and strike, headless, at the side of the box.

And my dad did make that snake into a decoration for his hat. On a windy day your heart would stop and then you would realize that the rattlesnake you were hearing was actually dead and sitting on my dad's head.

Don't you wish you had a childhood like mine...

For more snakey fun from my childhood, visit my mom's blog.