Rodent Patrol

We saw the first snake of the year, or at least the first one near the house that the dogs noticed. They always go wild with excitement when they see one. I'm not sure what the thrill is for them, but they bark and bark and bark, jumping up and down, noses pointing toward where it is mildly attempting to mind its own business.

We live in the country. Snakes are a fact of life. I appreciate their presence, actually, living under our home, hopefully keeping the wild rodents out of our house. Rodents eat people food and are quite destructive about it. Snakes do not. Snakes eat those pesky rodents. (Bring on the snakes!)

When we first moved out here, we had quite a few copperheads around the house. My husband was not thrilled about this development, as he was concerned that the dogs were not smart enough to give them space. Copperheads are not aggressive at all—you leave them alone and they will leave you alone. He did some research and found that copperheads are very fond of frogs, and frogs eat bugs, and bugs are attracted to light.

That light = bugs = frogs.

We kept the backdoor light on quite a bit at night. That was why we had so many copperheads at the rear of the house.

Now we leave the light off.

The snake the other day was a hognose. It's named for—you guessed it—the shape of its nose.

This is just as exciting for the dogs, and the noise of them just as annoying to us, but they are harmless.

My husband brought the dogs in and let it get on its way, under the house, to fulfill its vital function of rodent patrol. Sometimes the best solution is simply to step back and let nature do the work it was already designed to do.

Hooray for snakes!