Out of a Fireplace

In mid-August, quite well grown, they're leaving the nest in my fireplace to find more mice to eat than are available in a fireplace that's capped and sealed. From the inside, the snakes might work at loosening the tape for two days before emerging. Sometimes they're blacksnakes, sometimes northern prairie ringnecks (Diadophus punctatus edwardsii) such as this one. With tongs I peeled the tape from the fireplace, snake and all, and put it outside on gravel where it had a chance to work itself free. The film is one minute long.

Snaked Out

The transparent tape fell off the fireplace and I replaced it with duct tape so stickily strong it takes two arms to pull it off the roll, and felt satisfied. Then at night I hear crisp-crackling in the living room and I know it's a young snake loosening the tape and shouldering its way out of its fireplace nest into my living room. Can't blame it. I turn over and go to sleep.

The next morning I meet the baby prairie ringneck, about five inches long, on the living room carpet. I try to pick it up off to take it outside. It flees. Grabbing a bowl with a lid I charge after it like it's Snakes on a Plane. I have to get these m----- snakes out of my m------  house. It's terrified, slips away and vanishes into the space between the carpet and wall.

Oh, well. If I lived in Puerto Rico or Mexico or Houston I'd be thrilled if my only problem was a snake hatchery in the fireplace. And snakes are ancient symbols of wisdom. . . it's just that I'm snaked out for the season. Then I go to the garage and am surprised to find there a shed snakeskin. I enjoy examining it and photographing the neat, translucent, geometrical webbing. Next, I return to the house and shower and see in front of me the hose connected to the hand sprayer and it looks the same. For a moment I think I'm hallucinating.

Don't Look at These Dead Snakes, Part 2

The futon is to the left of the non-working stone fireplace and last night lolling around reading about celebrated idea-people and profound thinkers I happened to peripherally see that the brass fireplace frame had been re-molded with swirls and stuff, like Baroque or Louis XIV, and for a nanosecond wondered who installed that and when, and then I see they are dead snakes.

I already told you I taped the fireplace edges so snakes bred in the hearth would stay there, but tore the tape off in April yet some adhesive invisibly remained, and it trapped these four small Prairie Ringneck snakes, who died of dehydration. The top one has its head lifted. Death be not proud.

You'd think after one had been trapped there the others would avoid the area, but they think differently.

After I got over the shock I wondered what to do and am still wondering. In the Divine Cabin 16 years I have never seen the like. I don't mind live snakes, but the idea of peeling off dead ones (how stuck are they?) and tossing them (where?) makes me feel unwell. And then the adhesive must be scrubbed off.

But I can't just leave them there!

(The first thing I'd thought was that they were art!)