Snake Bite?

 Last week Thursday, while I was at two meetings which took most of the morning, my wife got involved in varied land girling activities. If there is not something in the yard or house for her to do, she invents something to do. Idle hands lead to no good in her minds. She is known for reorganizing what she had organized. This time, while land girling in a flower bed, which involved pulling out some weeds, looking at deer damage, or dead heading flowers she may have gotten a snake bite.

Snake in yard, May 2024 photo

We know we have had a garter snake in the yard, which you can read about here, but had not seen it for a month or more. Research shows that garter snakes can bite. The vegetation in the flower beds and garden is much thicker now, so perhaps it is better able to hide, and with warmer weather perhaps the long reptile does not need to sun itself on our slope in the yard, soaking up the rays so to speak. I doubt the snake uses sunscreen, so perhaps its need for vitamin D outdoes its risk of skin cancer. I am not sure if a snake can get skin cancer, but a garter snake will shed its skin two to three times a year, maybe in doing so it sheds those nasty cancer cells too.

Snake in yarad, May 2024 photo

Doing what brings her joy, playing in the dirt, Land Girl, aka "the Wife", was involved in the flower bed fresh up. She did not notice a bite until she was at the raspberry bed and saw blood on her forearm, which at first she thought maybe red raspberry juice. But, no it turned out to be blood. She cleaned her wound, as only a nurse can do, and found two small puncture marks, that could well fit that of snake bite. There are no plants with thorns that could make sure a wound. To date, she has not developed symptoms of a poison bite, which makes me think it was the garter snake and not some poisonous snake that found its way in the yard. Luckily, the punctures do not itch, did not swell, or turn a different color than her natural white of her under forearm.

Snake in yard, May 2024 photo

When anyone is working in the yard one has to expect the unexpected, bug bites, hitting an errant piece of metal, or a nasty thorn, coming across poison ivy, or now even a snake bite. Land Girl is alright for the wear, and she has not slowed down in her land girling activities.