is it the heat or am I just getting blase about venomous animals in my house?

[Kali]

saw a lovely little coral snake go onto the side porch (which is open to the kitchen), just now as I was walking out with a plate of food to eat outside. I was barefoot but I just stepped over it and said to the husband, "watch out there is a coral snake in the door way." his response was to try and take a picture of it with his cell phone, but it was too dark.

neither one of us felt like trying to get it out of the porch.

maybe it will eat the scorpion that managed to get away after it stung BOTH my sons after it went for a swim with them the other day.

[KMOD]

1. hahahaha. No, I've think you've reached the state of

epic coolness. You are completely comfortable with the nature of your area where you can be like "eh, just a little snake. Let 'em eat the pests and we'll deal with him later."

I've got to get back to that state. I freaked out last year when my cat brought in a live chipmunk. It lived my basement for four days. Looking back, it really wasn't worth the freak out I had,

[Kali]

3. I WISH I was cool.

can't get in the pool during the day because of the freaking bees. I know I shouldn't say this, but bees are stupid. they just fall in the water. then they try to get out by crawling on you, but for some dumbass reason they just sting you for existing.

during the day there are thousand of them. they don't bother you or the animals much like they would by their hives, but if one gets wet they just sting whatever they touch, and they are bound to get wet because apparently that much water is like headlights to a deer. they just fall in. almost jump in. DUMB!

so yeah, it is hot here and needs to rain good so I can have my pool back.

[KMOD]

6. The insects on the East Coast are freaking stupid too.

Our pools mostly get inundated with June bugs. They'll cling onto anything. We also get a lot of yellow jackets in our pools, I think they are attracted to the water for their mud type nests.

But the worst are the freaking flying ants. They're small enough that you don't notice them, but boy do they like to grab onto you and bite you. It's quite an annoying like sting to their bites, friggin' pests.



I hope you get your pool back soon!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I don't think blase is the right word, my dear Kali!

Are coral snakes poisonous????????

I do think you have the right attitude to live where you do, though!

[Kali]

4. EXTREMELY poisonous - cobra level

but they have teeny tiny little mouths and it would really be an effort to get bitten by one. maybe if you put it on your earlobe.

bees are my current irritation - see my other reply

[Downwinder]

5. We didn't get real excited in the Rincons until we pulled a six foot

diamondback away from the house foundation. Then when we caught a Gila monster on the porch the taxidermist said not to bring anything else in alive.

[Kali]

7. pfffttt

they like to get under my freaking desk!
had a gila monster in the house last year - that was a first. I think they are protected, did he do the job? how did it come out?

[Downwinder]

8. That was back in '48, I don't really remember.

We had to take it into Tucson and if we killed it it would shrink. I remember taking a nap and watching the pastel scorpions climbing up the wall. And playing with the centipedes in the irrigation ditch. We would give the dudes bb guns to shoot the wasps that landed on the pool. Ever so often I had to dive down to the bottom to recover the bbs.

[Kali]

9. ah, I wondered.

didn't think you could do that now. I don't know if it is climate change or what but I sure see a lot of then at higher altitudes now. they are pretty cool, don't bother me much.

rattlers in house yard or barn get dispatched but I usually leave them alone otherwise. they bite a cow now and then but most seem to recover ok.

[Downwinder]

10. Like you, the bees bothered me the worst.

I was allergic to them.

My first scorpion sting was in the Vail schoolyard. Didn't bother me much.

[Kali]

11. fortunatly nobody in the house seems allergic, though a couple of us swell up pretty good.

of all the things I have been stung by, I think harvester ants are the worst. bastids hurt for hours.

Vail - man that spot has changed a lot in the past few years. do you still live around the area?

[Downwinder]

12. Folks split the blanket in "50, we moved up to the Verde Valley.

Been in Texas mostly since '67.

[Kali]

13. heh, my family got run out of Texas in the 1880s

or so the story went

you would not believe what the area looks like now. big fight over a new open copper mine in the Rincons, water in the San Pedro (well everywhere, but that is "my" watershed) and meanwhile the state continues to fill up with people.

well, getting late I need to get to sleep - nice talking to you.

[Downwinder]

16. One of those Texans in the canyon?

[Kali]

18. yes indeed

only the story is usually "damn Texans"

[Downwinder]

24. Wonder who used that phrase.

You would be thrown out of St. David for using it. Was Benson there then?

What was the canyon name in Tom Jeffords time?

Or when Butterfield came through? I thought they had a change station there.

[Solly Mack]

14. Too bad about it being too dark. Coral snakes are pretty.

You have such cool animal stories.

[Kali]

19. I have some pix from past encouters

will have to look for them.

[Solly Mack]

20. Sweet! Thanks! We have them here but they can be shy.

[Kali]

23. yeah definitley shy

usually see them this time of year on real cloudy days or late in the evening like this one

[Recursion]

15. Red touch yellow kill a fellow

You won't have any mouse problem for a while, at least...

[Kali]

21. the are pretty small

I know this one probably couldn't have handled a mouse. I think they eat young toads and "blind snakes" which are small underground sightless and legless lizards

[pinboy3niner]

17. Kali, you are a DU shero

Every day you deal with crap most of us haven't a clue about. If I encounter a dangerous critter, I could only hope to have you by my side with your knowledge and your experience and your cool head.

[Kali]

22. pppfffftttt

cool head or lazy ass?

I think I will tell the real life folks around me I am being calm and collected instead of slow and unmotivated!