The Grabbers

Last night we were sitting on the patio with friends when Lola started going berserk! She ran from us to the corner of the back wall, looked at us, ran back and forth...her excitement obvious. We assumed another coyote was sniffing outside the wall and kept our conversation going. But Lola was not to be ignored. She insisted we investigate. We turned on the flood light as one of our city friends suggested and she followed Lola to see. " It's a SNAKE ! ", she shrieked. That DID get our attention!

Lola was standing over a writhing mass of black netting, Texas Ranger branches and pebbles. Mr. Take Charge took a quick look and told me to run in the house and grab the grabbers ( aptly named tool ). I found two and also grabbed a big flashlight. Yes, something was definitely wrong. The snake was moving but not going anywhere! Identification was important. No rattler noise. No triangular head. A gorgeous pink cast led me to say, " I think it's a rosy boa ! " ( Charina trivigata roseofusca ) Not dangerous. We looked more closely while our friends kept Lola away.

We determined the snake was helplessly entangled in a mass of bird netting which had covered the strawberry bed. The netting had blown into the ranger bush and was also entangled with that. A bad snake situation. I returned to the house for small scissors. The braver of the two of us held the snake just under the head ( after a little nip on the hand ) while I started cutting away the netting, which had tightened around the snake's body. It took about fifteen minutes before we had freed it, put it outside the gate and watched as it moved swiftly away.

Bird netting, along with plastic fish line, six pac covers, bottles and other items can be a deathtrap to animals. I remember another instance that we had to cut away netting from the apple tree to free a cotton tail: A young cottontail and a squirrel shared the same burrow. They seemed to play together, chasing one another round and round the yard. One day, we heard a dreadful squealing. The squirrel was making so much noise, we had to investigate. The rabbit was ensnared by the mesh and was dangling from a lower branch of the tree. We had to cut him free, also.

There is a moral to this story - and, by now, you know what it is. The snake was so beautiful and strong...we marveled at how the tail kept wrapping around the shaft of the grabbers...the way of the boa, I guess. We estimated the length at around three feet and actually had to "unwind" his tail after he was free of the netting. Another eventful Borrego memory!