Sometimes things just don’t go the way you planned. I had intended to do a bit of yard cleanup on that beautiful July day, so I went outside to rake some leaves. Yes, I know raking leaves is not something one normally does in the middle of summer, but we had torn down a rotted wooden retaining wall in our front yard, so I needed to clean up the leaves and other debris that had collected behind it over the years.
Immediately after I moved the first rake-full, I felt what seemed like a thorn or sticker jab into my foot. Looking down, expecting to see a pokey holly leaf or a wayward rose stem, I instead beheld, camouflaged within the dried leaves, a copperhead snake! Yikes! Apparently I had raked him out of his peaceful cubby straight to my right foot. He didn’t take too kindly to being disturbed and made his displeasure known by injecting into me a very healthy dose of venom.
No, sad to say, I was not wearing my snake boots. I should have been on high alert after encountering a timber rattler in my strawberry patch just the week before. While I appreciated the rattler wanting to make a meal of the chipmunks and squirrels which were eating my strawberries, I couldn’t have him hanging out where my little dog roams, so I “disposed” of him.
Unfortunately, the rattler’s revenge was meted out by Mr. Copperhead who cost me four days in two different hospitals and thousands of dollars in medical bills. Seven weeks now after the snake bite, my foot and ankle are still grotesquely swollen, a visual reminder of the lesson I learned that day: don’t rake a snake and if you do, WEAR BOOTS!
