Posted on 10/01/2006 8:31:58 AM PDT by girlangler
WILFORD, Idaho (AP) -- The Hepworths knew the house would require some maintenance. But they never thought they'd need a snake charmer.
Shortly after Lyman and Jeanine Hepworth began working on a rundown property outside of town, they experienced a trauma more fit for Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Snakes on a Plane" than a pair of eastern Idaho do-it-yourselfers.
Snakes, perhaps thousands of them, fell on Lyman Hepworth's head when he opened the door to a pump house near the small house the couple planned to buy.
"When it warmed up, we walked onto the yard and the whole yard moved," Jeanine Hepworth told the Rexburg Standard Journal. One day, Lyman Hepworth reached to turn on a light and discovered the pull cord was actually a snake.
Last March, the Hepworths were having money troubles. Struggling to pay off their medical bills and make house payments, they sold their old home.
They planned to buy a home and a couple of outbuildings from an acquaintance on a few acres outside tiny Wilford.
Then they found the snakes -- in the lawn, in the living room and in their hair.
Turns out the property was a winter snake sanctuary, likely a snake den or hibernaculum where snakes gather in large numbers to hibernate for the winter, said Lauri Hanauska-Brown, a biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
In the spring and summer the snakes fan out across the wilds of eastern Idaho, but as the days get shorter and cooler, the snakes return to the resting place -- in this case, the Hepworth's new home -- where they ball up for heat.
The snakes are likely a terrestrial garter snake, Hanauska-Brown said. Reptiles are a protected species meaning the Hepworths cannot bait them or kill them, she said.
The couple has not contacted Fish and Game to move the garters, Hanauska-Brown said. The department would attempt to move the snakes, but it could be difficult because if they move them too far they would die and if they move them close by the snakes would likely return to hibernate, she said.
"They are used to going there and kind of balling up," Hanauska-Brown told The Associated Press. "That sounds kind of Indiana Jonesish. But this is a natural thing."
The Hepworths never moved in, but Lyman Hepworth's brother is still making payments, though the seller offered to refund their money when he found out about the infestation.
Their plan: They sent a videotape of the house, their children and, of course, the snakes to the producers of "Extreme Home Makeover," in hopes the television show would send its decorators in for a filmed renovation.
The video showed snakes slithering on the back porch, climbing up the foundation and a ball of snakes on the side of the home, Jeanine Hepworth said.
The couple will not find out if the show chooses their reptile refuge for a fix-up challenge until next year.
Meanwhile, summer has turned to fall. And the snakes that have been out for the summer are making their way back to Hepworth's little home in Wilford.
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They should turn the place into a tourist attraction!
We need photos.
I didn't see any photos with the story.
I have an interest in this since I've recently had a few encounters with snakes in my yard.
One was a week or so ago when a friend and I picked up my canoe (at night) flipped it over on top my Jeep and strapped it down for a fishing trip the next day.
When we got to the lake he flipped it back over and a snake was slithering in it. Thank God it wasn't poisonouse. Ewwwwww.
Rarely is a day I go out during the fall or spring and not
find a copperhead or rat snake.
Theres a designated place for them - the shaded rockpile
away from the house.
The name is a bit telling too. They should change it to Herp-worths! :-)
i bet they don't have a rat problem ;)
They're all over the place where I live. And they're harmless, so I don't mind them.
"...The snakes are likely a terrestrial garter snake..."
As opposed to an extra-terrestrial garter snake.
ping
Can you describe the snake that you found in your canoe? Where do you live? If I know those things, I might be able to identify him.
Bill
Bill
I have kept Pigmy and Eastern Diamonback snakes. My Diamondback grew to about 5 feet before I released him. They really are fascinating creatures. I have searched far and wide to find a timber rattler but have not been able to get close enough to capture one. They are very skittish.
Like sharks, rattlers do get somewhat of an ill-deserved bad rap. They are not nearly as aggressive as they are portrayed to be. Not that they are not dangerous, they are, but Cottonmouths are far worse. Cottonmouths are the devil!
The week before, there had been an anole trapped in a hallway at work. He'd sit at the window looking outside clearly wanting out. I was going to catch him and put him outside, but every time I grasped for him, he was gone. I'd think I had him, but when I opened my hand, he wasn't there. I'd look down, and he's still be on the window ledge looking at me. I was telling some other guys about it, and we saw him on the ledge. One of the other guys, an older guy in his 50's, reached down very easily, picked the guy up, and put him outside. I was amazed that he had caught the thing so easily.
I was mountain biking at a reservoir the next week when I saw what I thought was a flattened black snake on a dirt road. I stopped and looked, but he didn't appear to be hurt. I didn't understand why he'd look so flat and wide. I thought, "I haven't barehanded a snake in a long time. I wonder if I can still do it." Of course, my failures with the anole made me want to prove to myself that at least I could still catch a snake. I knew he wasn't a rattlesnake or copperhead. I didn't think that the cottonmouth lived around there. I figured he was harmless. I reached down from behind and came up on his head. I picked him up and looked down at him.
I suddenly noticed that the scales on his tail didn't look right. Then I looked at his face and noticed the elliptical eyes and the Jacob's pit. I suddenly realized what I had. I picked up a twig to be sure and teased open his mouth. The inside was bright white, and he was poking his fangs at the stick.
I threw him into the bushes off the road. I hope he didn't cause any trouble with anyone else, but I didn't see any point in hurting him.
Bill
The guy I was fishing with, the one who threw the canoe over his head and then set it down and found the snake, said it was a garter snake. It was a baby, really tiny.
He picked the snake up and sat it down at the water's edge and the snake went slithering in the lake. It swam back to shore, and I would not get into the canoe until I made my friend run his hands under the bow and all over to make sure no more snakes were in it. I know some snakes are harmless, but I want NOTHING to do with them nontheless.
A few weeks before this incident, I had a HUGE grey and black snake crawling across my driveway and I spooked it and it slithered off the other way. It had the markings of a timber rattler, which are common here.
I live way out in the woods, up in a rocky outcropping, wooded isolated area. So I am sure I have a lot of snakes all around me. I have spent my entire life in the country, and so I know they are there. I also know they are more afraid of us than we are them.
Anyway, the little garter snake in the canoe slithered from the shore and back into the lake as we were watching him. It was early in the morning, and we watched him swim (all snakes can swim) and he went way out into the water.
We kept watching and wondering if we'd see a big bass come up and eat him. But the early morning sunlight combined with the ripples on the water, and he soon disappeared from our sight.
I live in, and am attuned to, nature. So I have no false ideals about how one animal eats another.
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