Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis)can be dangerous.Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes.Here's why.
A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of pottedplants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing alot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze. It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream.
The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor. His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.
The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.
About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.
The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake.. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief. But while relaxing, her hand slipped in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa. The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her. The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back ofthe head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches. The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.
By now, the police had arrived. Breathe here... They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake! The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.
Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes. The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car. Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square cityblock area (but they did get the house fire out).
Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.
A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night. And that's when he shot her.
If I come out there, there'd better be food...
Whatcha got? Whatcha got???? Jerries??? 
Mmmmmmmmm, I wov jerries, (munch, munch, smacking of lips....)
More? More? Got more? 
Oh, a new hand... Hmmm, guess it smells OK... Got food? 
It was on a bit of a slope, so I put bricks under the low side. Then he mixed some peat moss, vermiculite and chicken manure (this is serious chicken country – might as well bag it and sell it, right?) and I set in some plants already started in little pots.
I planted string beans (Blue Lake), spinach, and some purple Basil. Bambi soon discovered these delicious morsels were right at chin level, so I needed to put a bit of netting up around the garden.
Next year I will do it differently, but like I said, it has been a learning experiment. The netting was a problem for me, so I switched to nylon fencing. Much easier to work with! Ugly as sin, but easier! I was so amazed when I actually saw first the blossoms, then real little beans. It is kind of fun watching plants grow from bunny level! If you don’t know my gardening history, my other wonderful neighbor has plowed and cultivated my ground level garden for 2 years, and I have planted and replanted string beans in said garden for 2 years, and have never had more than a couple of meals worth of beans, and the few yellow wax beans were never particularly pretty. So imagine my delight when I picked my first crop of beans from the stand-uppity garden (as a little friend calls it) and have continued to harvest beans for over a month. I have had as many Blue Lakes from my 4 plants in the Stand up garden as I had from the dozen plants in the ground. And there are still new ones coming. 
The beans are absolutely perfect, not a blemish on a single bean! Here is one little basket full. Punkin is supervising from the shade of the Adirondack. 
the crab grass managed to get in there. Planting hurt, harvesting hurts, and weeding is almost impossible. And, in the Stand up garden, being this far up, I have not had that many weeds to worry about, or my worst problem, grass. Crab grass!
We managed to take part of one day to run down to Rockport, one of my favorite spots. I don't care how hot it is in YOUR yard, it is always cool next to this stream.
Just a little beyond this, maybe 50 feet, the creek drops down another falls into the river.
The river is the Lehigh and flows about than 800 feet from our house. The Pennsylvania (?)railroad built their tracks along the river which used to be navigable up as far as White Haven and some say even beyond. Now the old RR bed is used for bikers and hikers. They bring 'em in by the bus load from the camps and resorts. 
Just up the road a piece is this house... 
I had to take that pic from the road while driving - no place to stop... See the guard rail? Talk about a "white noise" machine to help you sleep! Can you imagine? But my favorite sleeping sound is still the surf and a fog horn. Oh well. Maybe once again before I die... But, until then, waterfalls will do. 
Does it look like a rotten board to you? It looks like a law suit in waiting to me - so - off to the lumber yard and a sheet of plywood nailed over the hole until my brother can get up there to put in some new tongue and groove. 
Not very pretty, I know - but at 3/4 an inch - nobody can go thru that hole without pulling up the plywood. So between that and the poison sumac that has been allowed to grow
into the yard and driveway up back, I was pretty busy, and pretty lucky to have a chance to take a quick drive down to the river. That sumac is well over 6 feet tall. 
This is after I cut some of it, and the grass, back. This little opening used to be wide enough to drive my van thru. Some of the grass has not been cut this year at all. In fact, it looks like it wasn't cut last fall, either. 
We made it to the house in PA... and a yard high in weeds, weeds, and untamed wisteria. The Buddha up back was so buried, I could barely find him.
The entrance to our apartment is under this roof - that is the first floor down there.
the river and streams are full... 
makes for nice waterfalls.
I think we missed the Mountain Laurel - have seen only a little of it. Some of the rhododendron is in bloom. 
The water in the dam is up over the road - not on purpose, just a lot of rain.
See the vehicles at the water's edge?
The Lehigh is fast and full.
We hit bottom in one spot. Got the tires washed at any rate!
Just need to share the latest possum baby. I decided to name her Blossom... the name seems to fit. 
Is she cute or what?????
Have you ever smelled a holly tree in bloom?
Awesome. The woods are full of wild blackberries.
And if you look up,
you might notice the blooms on the honey locust trees.
Sweet! I have discovered many people have never seen a fringe tree.
Well, if you ever see one in bloom, go stick your nose in one... well, actually, it is so fragrant, you don't have to even get closer than 10 or 20 feet!
OK, I planted the Iris while most of the rest of the things came up naturally here. 
One thing you won't find in my yard is Wisteria. It overpowers me. Wisteria and Gardinias... they take my breath away, literally.
The poor butterflies won't know which way to turn!
And just starting, the magnolia!
Magnificent - or is it Magnifi-scent?
