Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:23:07 -0400
From: Gary Phillips
Subject: Copperhead in the woodpile
We built a new shed this week, with the help of Danny Grasty from Silk Hope, and I was hot to get all my wood under it. First I cut cedar boards and posts to make a rick, then set in to moving everything under cover. A lot of creatures like to shelter under a woodpile and I was amazed at all that boiled out as I move the wood from a loose pile to the stack: wood crickets, skinks, just-hatched fence lizards, a field mouse family, wolf spiders . . .
It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, working out the last quarter of wood under the cedars, that I picked up a log and there she was. Just a few inches from where my hand had been, shining in the sun like a new penny. She was not aggressive or frightened, just curious. Slowly she uncoiled and tried out different spots in the woodpile while I worked around her. I admired her and had no wish to harm; she still made me nervous as hell. I took a long-handled hoe and moved each stick of wood slowly aside until she was completely exposed, then she took her own sweet time and slipped into the field. All in all I took about 20 pictures of her, and tried not to offer any offence.
I was a little unnerved but still grateful for her visitation. It put me to mind of my grandmother Lilly, whose South Carolina family danced all over the color line and who had been bitten once by a copperhead. “Don’t move a woodpile in the middle of the summer,” she warned me once. I felt her watching out for me.
gary phillips
I love your patience and your reverence for life. I was disappointed to not see pictures. Maybe the N and O would like them and I could see…I had a black snake on my porch. I was uncomfortable and I wanted him to leave. I did not want to step over him going in and out with my dog. He was kind of territorial. I am not comfortable picking them up. I would not want anyone picking me up to move me. My neighbor put him in the grass next to my house. I’d like to see him once in a while, at a distance. We did encounter a copper head a couple years ago and the person i was with had an impuse and stepped on him before I could think. there are others though. I show them respect. I note that you called it She. To me they are always he.