What is it about snakes?

This morning, my wife took a picture of a snake she saw when walking the dog – it was sitting next to the raised bed where we have strawberries.  She posted it on facebook and I re-shared it, adding the caption “This is my friend Sam. He keeps the field mice out of my garden. Sam loves us because we don’t stir our compost very often and attract a lot of food for him.”

Being a parent, and largely ignorant about snakes, the first thing I did was try to look him up and make sure he wasn’t venomous.  Indiana only has a few venomous snakes – cottonmouths, copperheads, and a couple of different rattlesnakes.  Sam didn’t fit any of those, but then my curiosity got the better of me and I started hunting around the internet.  I looked at probably two dozen species of snakes that I found on various websites purporting to identify the common snakes of Indiana.  I spent maybe 30 minutes and came up empty handed but with a few things that were “kinda” close.  I sent the picture to a local herpetologist, Jim Horton of the Hoosier Herpetological Society and, I learned, of Indiana Jim’s Reptile Experience, and he got back to me in less than an hour, saying “The snake in question is an eastern garter snake.  They are very common in Indiana (not to mention harmless).”

Finished with that, I jumped back on my facebook page and had all sorts of comments and messages from friends and family.  Some were excited and others were concerned that the snake might be venomous.  Truthfully, I was surprised at how may people were interested in one way or another, and also a little touched that so many people were concerned.  But it made me wonder – what is it about snakes that inspires this fascination?  People who know snakes know that there are a lot more around than most people would ever believe.  I remember preparing for a camping trip in the Red River Gorge and reading somewhere that at any point along the trail there are statistically at least 10 snakes within a 10 meter radius of you.

I’m not afraid of snakes personally.  I actually want the right kinds of snakes in my garden, as my caption above suggests.  I don’t love them either.  I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.  I don’t want one as a pet and I tend to steer clear of them, but as a runner, I’m far more afraid of stray dogs in my neighborhood.  Still, almost everyone I know gets extremely anxious about snakes, far more than I’d expect simple unfamiliarity to cause.

So I thought I’d explore the psychology behind the way people react to snakes – here are a few of the interesting things I found:

• Wikipedia says that the abnormal fear of snakes is called ophidiophobia.  Most people, even the ones who really don’t like snakes, don’t suffer from this.  Phobias are far more intense than a simple aversion.
• As reported here, a recent study suggests that humans may be genetically hard-wired to fear snakes and earlier studies suggest that our brains actually react to the sight of a snake before we even have time to consciously identify it as a snake.  The link contains some speculation about why – but it’s just speculation.
• Predictably, other experiments suggest it’s a learned behavior and interestingly, even at 11 months old, boys and girls react differently to seeing snakes.
• Another interesting thing – learned by comparing both of the above links is that humans seem to be fairly perfectly evolved to pick out a snake in hiding.  Even very young children, shown pictures of snakes in various settings pick out the snake before anything else in the picture.
• And here is a lot more info about the Eastern Garter Snake.  Admittedly, the pics look a bit different than the one we took – but the professional herpetologist was quite certain, so I’m going to defer to his judgment.  Also, if you look here the picture in the lower right shows a juvenile Eastern Garter snake and that one looks a lot more like Sam.

I found them interesting anyway – hopefully some of you out there in internet land will as well.  I guess if you really look at it, it boils down to no one knows why we are afraid of snakes but to greater and lesser degrees, we are.

Because our Easter Bunny was in the Infantry …

This is a week late, but Easter with five kids gets a bit busy, so better late than never …

I dearly love my children and this year I finally feel that my boys are old enough to handle some off-trail hikes and backcountry camping and foraging with me. The girls are still a bit young. Nevertheless, I’m extremely excited to be able to finally combine two of my great loves – the backcountry and my kids.

But as a parent, I had to have the terrible thought: what if they get lost or I get injured?

The answer: They’ll know what to do because I’m going to give them the tools and the knowledge to do the right thing. I’ve set up a whole training program for them that we’ll work through together to get their bodies and minds ready. It includes regular hands-on classes and instruction and several increasingly difficult hikes and camping excursions – culminating in what I hope will be an eye opening adventure for them in the Red River Gorge near the end of the season.

But first I needed to give them the gear they’ll need for a hike (camping gear comes later – when they’ve earned it). I wanted quality gear in hunter orange – both because it would make them (and it) easier to find and also because a lot of the best places to hike around here are also hunting spots.

What better time, I thought, to be given a bag of fun and wonder than Easter?!

So here’s what they got:

• A small haversack by Rothco. I think the tag said something like Vintage Replica WWII German Bread Bag – which, I discovered, has backstraps that are compatible with MOLLE gear so they’ll be able to mount on the back of the backpacks I got them for the actual camping part.
• Custom Orange Name Tapes which my lovely wife was kind enough to sew on.  Just a nice touch.
• Stainless steel water bottle and 5 water purification tablets.  Doubles as a way to boil water.
• Orange Mora Companion knife in carbon steel.  The knife is hair popping sharp, well balanced and has a rubberized handle and a small finger guard to keep them from slipping while they use it.
• Homemade 5’x7′ sil-nylon ripstop tarp in orange, with grommets. Plus stakes and a bungee cord.  Either tarp can be set-up as single person hooch in about a minute and the two together can be combined like shelter-halves to make a tent.  I ordered the fabric, cut to size and sewed on the grommets – there will be no pictures of the results of my sewing.  Functional it is, pretty it ain’t.
• 50 feet of 550 cord in orange (in two 25′ bundles).
• Mini Bic lighter.
• 10 tinder tabs in a waterproof container (Light My Fire and Coughlans)
• Orange signal panel/handkerchief (generic, cotton)
• Orange camp towel (sham-wow – cheap and effective)
• Compass (kept it very simple and went with a Silva 1-2-3)
• Rescue whistle (Fox 40)
• Knife sharpener (nothing fancy, just something to help them get into practice of keeping the edge sharp).
• A small first aid kit (Ultralight and Watertight .3 by AMK)
• A set of pace beads (homemade)
• A floating flashlight that also blinks SOS (the company is eGear)
• A spork (Light My Fire – Jumbo)
• A spade (generic from Walmart)
• A package of wet wipes
• A d-ring (light utility grade, not climbing grade)
• A quart bag of Easter candy (which they quickly gorges themselves on and will be replaced by a meal on a normal hike).

So that’s fire, water, shelter, food, first aid, hygiene, rescue and navigation plus a tool or two. Not a bad kit.  It weighs about 4 pounds without water.  A little over 5 pounds with water and a meal.