Slimey the Snake

The other day I was helping an elderly neighbor rake and mow his lawn when I came upon a little snake hiding amongst the leaves. Recognizing the opportunity, I picked up the little guy and took him home. A few minutes of searching in the basement turned up a small plastic aquiarium type of container that would make a nice little home.

The container was left over from a previous attempt to grow dinosaurs with my son. Another trip outside to grab some dried leaves, and the little snake was suddenly living on our dining room window sill. I went back to work across the street.

I was just finishing up my raking when my son, having returned home from church, stuck his head out the door and yelled at me across the street. "Daddy! There's a snake in here!" "Really?" I said, "How the heck did it get in there?" "I have no idea", he says.

It didn't take him long to name the snake "Slimey". Sierra, his little sister, agreed on the name. In reality, Slimey is not slimey at all. After a bit of research, it turns out that he is a [Dekay's] Brown Snake.

(artist's rendition of Slimey)

The good news is that Brown Snakes apparently eat earthworms and slugs... which are quite easy to obtain in the back yard. The few leaves I had gathered were apparently appreciated by Slimey as he naturally curled up among them and stuck his head up to monitor his surroundings. As the past 48 hours have taught us, this is apparently his natural posture.

As I understand it, snakes don't have to eat that often, but being humans we were starting to worry if Slimey was getting hungry. So before work this morning I ventured into the back yard to dig for worms. A few minutes work produced 2 small earthworms, a slug, and a few more leaves for comfort.

Back inside the house, I dumped the lot into his container. To our great surprise, he immediately started testing the air with his tongue. He cruised all around in search of these new scents, which he quickly found. Though he didn't eat anything (maybe he only eats at night or something) but it feels like we did the right thing.

I remember generating the formula as a kid that a person's love of snakes is inversely proportional to their love of spiders. You either don't mind one or the other, but not both. Me, I like snakes and can't stand spiders. Apparently my family feels the same way. Some people can't stand snakes, but will let a spider crawl up their arm. Yikes. Snakes though... no problem at all. Cute little guys.