We went out for awhile and when we came back, as we pulled into our driveway Randy saw a big snake lying in front of our door!
It's tail was tucked behind a planter but we were able to see that it had rattles. Great. We have a big fat rattlesnake at our front door. And it wasn't happy to see us.
Apparent we got too close for it because it rattled its tail (leaving no doubt about what type of snake it was), slid off the porch, and moved along the side of the house. For a snake, it was pretty smart - it slid under the pile of lumber stacked there, where we couldn't see it. But it continued to rattle its tail for several minutes, sounding like a loud hornet nest against the aluminum siding.
Randy called 911 and received a callback from Lake County Fire and Rescue. They said they'd be there in 15 minutes. We spent every moment of that 15 minutes watching the woodpile. We didn't want it to disappear somewhere (under the porch? in the weeds?).
The guys arrived and proceeded to wrangle the snake out. They kept saying what a big one this one was! And, as one man put it, it wanted to put up a fight. It took several minutes and many tries to get the proper hold on the snake. Every time they got it with the grappling tool, it would wriggle into a position where they couldn't hold it.
Eventually they got the right hold on it and slid it tail-first into a canvas bag.
They put the bag into a plastic bucket with a screw-on lid. The snake wrangler said this one was a real fighter, even pumping venom onto the canvas bag.
They will release it somewhere safe, which is great because although I love alligators, I simply will not share my space with a rattlesnake.
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