Caught Between Two Snakes

It's that time of year again, boys and girls... Snake season and I had my first encounter today with a snake on the road. It was warm today and I decided I would do a sweat test on my run. I ran up the road, around the church, past the neighbor's and was going back home when the neighbor's little puppy started following me. I kept shooing it back home, but it stayed stuck to my heels the whole mile back to my mailbox. About 200 yards from my driveway I spotted what I'm pretty sure was a copperhead snake stretched out in the road. It was about 2 feet long and had its head up, but was not moving. I moved over and ran on past since it was not being aggressive. The puppy, however did not have as much sense and practically stepped on the snake's head. I was sure I was going to see that little puppy get bitten by that snake, but the snake just stayed still until the puppy passed by.

We ran on until we got to my drive and my husband was coming from the other direction. I told him about the snake in the road (the first live one I've seen this year) and he said HE had just seen a live copperhead in the road in that direction. That direction just happens to be a good flat section of road where I do my speed work.

You don't live in the piney woods of Louisiana without having a healthy respect for poisonous snakes. According to the book "Snakes of the Southeast" by Whit Gibbons and Mike Dorcas Louisiana has every kind of venomous snake found in the southeast. (Oh, Goody!) My sweat glands were in overdrive, so much for the test! It is very rare to see one snake on the road, much less two in the same hour! I did the middle portion of my run in the middle between the two snake spottings, just to be sure. If I'm jogging I can see everything, but if I'm sprinting I don't want to come upon a snake in the road. During my cool down, I went back to see if my snake was still there to take a picture, but it was gone. Probably home to tell its family the horrifying tale of seeing a woman and a clumsy puppy.

Since I didn't get a photo, here is a picture that my son drew. The label says "cottontail" which he has confused with Cottonmouth (some people call it a water moccasin), but it looks more like a Copperhead.