Diamondbacks are a a girl's best friend!

On the scale of Sarah this week was pretty crazy eventful. I saw my first Diamondback! It was really beautiful and scary. The snake was happily sunning itself on the road, when we came barreling down and had to slam on our breaks to keep from hitting it. Kathy (the biologist I was with) had just taken off her waders and so she jumped out of the truck without any shoes on and approached the snake. I grabbed my camera and did the same (although I had shoes on!).

I guess it wasn't a particularly big diamondback, but at probably a little over 4 feet long (maybe 6-8 inches in diameter) it seemed pretty crazy big to me! I was pretty nervous about getting too close. Especially when the snake started to coil in on itself and rise off the ground. Its head was suspended at least a foot off the ground as it stared at us and rattled.

Kathy and I had just been talking about diamondbacks and how they are really persecuted down here. People intentionally go out of their way to run them over or chop them into bits. Basically, if one of us didn't move this amazing irritated coil of a snake off the road it was going to be killed. Kathy rose to the challenge and took out one of our sampling nets from the truck. These dip nets are on a pole about 3 feet long. She pushed the net towards the snake until it was slightly underneath his coils. The snake rattled a little more menacingly and tried to rise a little higher to see over the net. It seemed to know that the thing touching it wasn't alive and wanted to keep its eye on Kathy. Kathy kept pushing it backwards until it was maybe 10 feet from the road. We left it there on a bare patch of dirt. Hopefully, it would find another place to sun itself.

After this event, here are a couple of interesting facts I learned about diamondbacks 1. They can spring about half the length of their body. So this snake could have jumped about 2 feet forward to bite. They can also "recock" to strike incredibly quickly, so you really want to be at least a body length of the snake away. 2. Diamondbacks are really poisonous. If you don't get to a hospital within 2 hrs of being bit you will almost definitely lose the limb you were bit on. You could even possibly die. 3. Baby snakes are more dangerous than adults because they don't know how to control the amount of venom they inject. You do not want to be bitten by a baby snake! 4. You are not worth a snakes time and energy. Rattlers are not gunning for you. They just want to be left alone. The only time that you are going to get bit is if you ignore their warnings and harass them. So leave them alone and you'll be fine. Or if you have to bug them (ie move them off a road) use a very long stick!

So that was my most amazing encounter this week. In other news I am signing a lease on an apartment today. Soon I will have an address and be able to unpack! YAY! I've really lucked out and am being donated a lot of my furniture. All 3 of my co-workers are giving me things. I'm getting a bed from Melissa, a desk (that I'll use as a dresser) from Jaan, and a coffee table from Jim. Getting all of that furniture was such an amazing stress relief. You wouldn't believe how happy that made me!

So yeah! Big excitement this week on many fronts!

PS: Brett! My parent's sent me a package last week and one of the things in it was a little package from Japan. I now have a tiny whale shark hanging off my satchel (*cough cough* I SUPPOSE you could call it a purse) jingling at me everyday. Thanks for the gift! Its awesome!