Nature Post!

[rubyelf]

In our compressed and constantly frost-threatened spring, we have reached the awkward teenage point. The childhood is full of delicate, short-blooming little flowers in a race against time, and once the adulthood of summer arrives the slower-growing plants that mature will fill the now-empty fields and roadsides and lake shores with tall, long-

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[nimnod]

Confession: Although not phobic, I am respectful bordering on terrified of naturally occurring snakes. I can hold people's pet snakes and have them slither up my sleeve etc with only minor teeth-gritting but about 90% of snakes here are venomous, and most of those require a shot of anti-venom if they bite you because they're suitably toxic to humans, and they don't stock anti-venom in our tiny town because it goes off/denatures too quickly, so a snake-bite almost always means a 90-120 minutes painful car trip to the nearest big city. If you're bitten by a neurotoxic snake you have about 4 hours to get a shot, and that includes whatever time it takes you to get out of the bush back to town and then onto the major road to the big city. So in my head snakes-in-the-bush can realistically kill and adult, and a small child in less time, if they are neurotoxic, and I'm not an expert in telling the difference.

Neurotoxic snakes that I might bump into in the bush around here that are listed as having potentially fatal bites include:
- Cape Cobra
- Coral Snake
- Mozambique Spitting Cobra
- Forest Cobra
- Snouted Cobra
- Black Mamba
- Green Mamba
- Rinkhals
- Gaboon Adder

That said, of that list I have only ever seen a Rikhals and a Cape Cobra. I won't get started on the cytotoxic snakes because chances are they won't kill me but suffice to say, fear.

[rubyelf]

The only reason I'm so willing to freely catch and handle snakes around here is that we only have a few venomous species and they are very easy to recognize, because they are very different from the non-venomous ones. Bites around here are nearly nonexistent, and the ones that do happen are usually to an idiot who is keeping venomous snakes for fun and gets bitten by one.