Hot & Snakey Too!

[JoeyLowe]

   Okay, so of course I know that snakes like cool places and of course, they are crawling around at this time of the year.  But do they have to hang out where I'm trying to work.  I went out to a jobsite this morning at about 5:00 a. m. to try and get a headstart on old man Sun.  I'm milling 20" x 16' oak logs into 2 x 10's.  First couple of logs cut without a problem.  Then I ran into a log jam.  Using my cant hook to free up the problematic log, I inadvertently uncovered several nesting black snakes.  Not a pretty sight, watching me get out of the way.

[Tom]

It's the Rattlers and Moccosins that make me hop, joey.

Down here the trees, cedar especially, harbor snakes.  Cedar is notorious for being a home for ants, roaches and crickets.  The convaluted trunks, holes where limbs have fallen out and the voids in the trunk make a good habitat for black snakes and skinks.  

If you wish to be alarmed, wait until you are walking beside your mill making a cut in a cedar and a snake comes flying out of a knot hole trying to get away from the blade.  Usually it has already found him and it is only the front part that comes out but it will still scare the bawillikers out of you.

I've also noticed them cringing in a hollow when I remove the board and spend the next few minutes trying to extract them so that I can make the next cut.

[Bibbyman]

Bawillikers - Is that something like Pee-Waddle?  

Just want to know in case I've got to translate for the Yankees again.

[Tom]

  :DYeah, but a milder terminology than peewadden or pee waddle. course it's a little stronger term than Macwhatchimucallit

[JoeyLowe]

   Now you see, I'm a former Marine and I've been through JEST ("Jungle Environmental Survival Training", which is a fancy term for living in the jungle and eating bugs and snakes and wishing you were at home eating a steak and drinking beer).  But, for the life of me, I can't say how I would react if a log spit a snake or even a half of a snake out at me.  And, by the way, I went back and checked the Woodmizer manuals and no where in the manuals or in their advertising does it mention anything about snakes hiding in (or around logs).  

On the other hand, guess who has added another item to there list to be ever so watchful of?

[ARKANSAWYER]

About this time last spring I rolled a 18" cedar over with my small cant hook only to come face to face with a 49" Rattler.  I lost my grip on the cant hook when the log rolled so I grabed a cedar branch by my foot and started in on whipping that snake.  Wore the hide plumb off of him before I got him kilt.  The ole boy I was sawing for was a hollering "That's a wrassler run!!  %$%$&%$*^%#%$^%".  I figured that I knew where he was I would just keep him pinned down.
  Had a 24" copper come out of the hollow of a white oak as I started into it and came across the mill and between my feet and son killed it with a cant hook. (I never stopped sawing)
  Having been bitten 3 times it is the ride to the hospital that may kill you.
  Watch out for hollows for the wasp and jackets hole up in there and can sure clear a sawing site,

[HORSELOGGER]

Makes a fella proud to be a Yankee    

Horselogger, snake free in northern Illinois

[Jeff]

The only critters I ever had come out of a log were A raccoon, lots of mice, flying squirrels and usually at least once a year BEES! Bumble bees like hollow trees, for the life of me I wonder how the hell they make it clear to the mill.

[Kevin]

I came close to getting frost bitten once.  

[CHARLIE]

Here in Minnesota, we gotta be on the watchout for snow snakes. They only come out in the dead of winter and are hard to see 'cause they are white. I ain't never seen one....think I felt one with my toes though..once. I hear they can be mighty vicious.  

[Paul_H]

I didn't think we had much for deadly snakes up here,but I overheard a Swede in the repair shop the other day complaining about Vindshield Vipers.