{"id":6030,"date":"2020-10-09T11:40:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T15:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6030"},"modified":"2020-10-09T11:42:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T15:42:15","slug":"episode-137-where-have-all-the-garter-snakes-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6030","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 137 WHERE HAVE ALL THE GARTER SNAKES GONE?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EPISODE  137   WHERE HAVE ALL OUR SNAKES GONE?<\/div>\n

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Alan Skeoch<\/div>\n
Oct. 9, 2020<\/div>\n

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Every year of my life I have met snakes in the summer time.  Garter snakes especially and the<\/div>\n
occasional milk snake.  Except this summer.   No one has been found staring at me in the<\/div>\n
barn or green house.   Usually they hide among the thousand flower pots I keep hap hazardly stacked<\/div>\n
but not this  year.<\/div>\n

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A snake only scares me when I do not see the creature until I lift a flower pot or move a <\/div>\n
tool box.  One day a couple of  years ago there were a whole bunch of garter snakes in<\/div>\n
the green house.  Lots of males, smaller than the females, but I was looking in the wrong place.<\/div>\n
I should have looked above my head where she was  stretched out\u2026maybe just inches  from<\/div>\n
my head\u2026watching me.  See if you can  find her here.<\/div>\n

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How did garter snakes get their name?   Because they looked  like the garters that men<\/div>\n
once wore to hold their socks up?   Now who would do that.  My socks droop down.  Suppose<\/div>\n
I wrapped a garter snake around my sock just for fun.  Nope.  Cannot do that this year.<\/div>\n

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Once I found a snake in my shoe.  Maybe it wanted to be a garter.<\/div>\n

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Frogs are in short supply.  Endangered by disease and the Sixth mass extinciton.  With few <\/div>\n
frogs there will have to be fewer snakes.  Sad bit true.   <\/div>\n

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Our grandson, Jack, is a great snake catcher.  He does  not kill them\u2026meets them eye to eye.<\/div>\n
His  dad once said that garter snakes  do not bite.  That was proved false when he caught a<\/div>\n
big one and it latched onto his finger.  Most garter snakes are small but one was once found<\/div>\n
that was five feet long.   <\/div>\n

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How many garter snakes  are found in North America.  About one million.  I thought there were<\/div>\n
more.  One year we were visiiing Amherst Island and found garter snake balls in an old house<\/div>\n
foundation.  Garter snakes all wrapped up together for the winter or maybe they were copulating.<\/div>\n
Whups\u2026I should not mention sex I suppose.   <\/div>\n

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Our uncle John Skeoch, Saskatchewan  farmer, had to abandon his  stone stone house on the <\/div>\n
prairies because garter snakes had taken over beginning with the foundation field  stone<\/div>\n
gaps and ending up in the kitchen coffee cups.   Snakes  eye to eye with us in the kitchen.<\/div>\n
Seemed  like more than a million must exist.  But that was forty years ago.  Today there<\/div>\n
seem to be no snakes  in our flower pots.  <\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n

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Killing snakes happens.  Especially snakes that carry venom that will kill humans.   Like rattle snakes.  Years  ago, Dr. Norm Patterson, geophysicisit, nearly sent<\/div>\n
me to Arizona on a mining job.  Lots of rattlers down there.  So I read a  couple of snake books.  What should I do  if bitten or if a friend got bitten.<\/div>\n
\u201cSuck out the blood\u201d  Imagine that.  How would I suck out the blood of my own leg?  How much blood?   How could  I do  that to a fellow worker?<\/div>\n

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No problem.  The next day Norm said he had changed his mind and sent me to Southern Ireland for the summer.  There are no snakes<\/div>\n
in Ireland.  Another crew was  sent to Arizona.   I said nothing to them about rattle snakes.<\/div>\n

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We do  have rattlesnakes in Ontario  They are protected.  Our son Andrew has tried to discourage his son Jack from catching Ontario rattlers.<\/div>\n

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That light green grass snake is startling in colour but invisible in the grass.<\/div>\n

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Marjorie once caught a big garter snake with an equally large frog halfway down its throat.  She pulled out the frog and it hopped away.  The<\/div>\n
snake was not amused.   Why tell you this?  Because it is Marjorie\u2019s birthday today.  What has her birthday got to do with snakes. Nothing.<\/div>\n
Just making the point that Marjorie, our son Andrew and his  son Jack love snakes.  And that love may save a few snakes  from the snake<\/div>\n
killers.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Oct. 9, 2020<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE  137   WHERE HAVE ALL OUR SNAKES GONE? Alan Skeoch Oct. 9, 2020 Every year of my life I have met snakes in the summer time.  Garter snakes especially and the occasional milk snake.  Except this summer.   No one has been found staring at me in the barn or green house.   Usually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}