Attic Finds

Ted Calver

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
8,436
Location
Yorktown, Virginia
It was a dreary day, so I decided to tackle the attic during the time of year between freezing cold and too dang hot. I managed to fill up two boxes with old documents that need shredding, freed a bunch of bowl blanks from their post DNA bath newspaper wrap, attic 011.jpg

found a bunch of cherry shorts I had stickered and forgotten,
attic 014.jpg

deep-sixed a computer gizmo that claimed to be the last drive I would ever need,

attic 004.jpg

....and then, way back on top of the insulation along the north wall next to my fishing poles I spied....these: snake skins!
attic 010.jpgattic 016.jpg About five feet long. They look like black snake. Now I've got to figure out how they got into my all brick house with aluminum clad fascia and continuous soffit... an impenetrable fortress of an attic!

If it's not one thing, it's another. What next, piranhas in the bird bath??
 
I think the snakes went skinny dippin'.

You would think that insulation would have killed them before they got that big.

We had a 5' California King snake that pretty much had the run of the house. He loved to hang from the dining room chandelier. I won't even mention "George", Greg's pet tarantula or his rosy boa constrictor plus others I cannot remember. I don't think Darren's wife would have liked our house.

Enjoy,
JimB
 
I'm no expert, but I'll bet those roughed-out bowls are dry now. :D

Hadn't seen a Jaz drive in about forever. It'd only take about 500 of them to equal a <$100 hard drive these days, lol.
 
deep-sixed a computer gizmo that claimed to be the last drive I would ever need,

View attachment 89874

I have a Windows 95 Installation Disk if you would like to use that disk with a WHOLE Gigabyte!

....and then, way back on top of the insulation along the north wall next to my fishing poles I spied....these: snake skins!
View attachment 89873 About five feet long. They look like black snake. Now I've got to figure out how they got into my all brick house with aluminum clad fascia and continuous soffit... an impenetrable fortress of an attic!

Look at the light coming in in the top left corner of the picture. I bet a snake could make it through that hole. Or both snakes could.
 
i wouldnt be real comfortable stayun at your place after seeing these ted, and i think charlie may have solved it for you snakes can climb trees and rough brick should be no problem either..
 
I may be a wuss, but I wouldn't like being in your house either after seeing those... although when I was about 11 or 12 we lived in a house in east Texas that had cracks you could throw a cat through... one morning mom was sweeping her bedroom and swept a 5 or 6' snake skin from under her bed...

Charlie's right about snakes climbing... I went out to my shop a couple years back and in the window over my work bench I have a thermometer in the window to keep track of how hot/cold it gets in the shop... I couldn't see anything to give him a hand hold, but I had a 2' rat snake coiled on top of the thermometer... somehow he climbed a sheer wall.... he was not happy when I knocked him off his perch, he hissed at me, tried to lunge at me almost like a rattler... they say Rat Snakes will imitate a rattler sometimes... I check now every time I go into the shop to make sure there's not one lurking somewhere.... I've gotten used to the black snake under the shop.. he keeps the varmits out... although I haven't seen him/her in a year or so. Hopefully the dogs didn't get him.
 
I think Charlie spotted the entry point. I'll be doing the belly crawl with some foam to close those spots off....very soon. The next report will be pictures of the hole made from me falling through the ceiling, or going up through the roof if I find a live one! For those wishing they had an excuse to relocate, I can loan you a couple of skins until you close on your new house. :D One of my grandsons wants them, but maybe we should keep them in reserve to "find under the bed" when house guests overstay their welcome.:rofl::rofl:
 
I have not been to my Brother-in-laws house in since '93 because he had snakes and one came up missing. It has never been found, I will not go back until it is accounted for and under control. How long do snakes live?
 
Well. I procrastinated too long on filling up the snake hole. I went up there today to get something and saw a big black shadow on the insulation where I found the skins. The snake was back. I called county animal control, since that's what I pay taxes for, only to find out that they are prohibited from entering attic spaces??? So, chicken that am I went across the street to get the neighbor that claims to know about snakes.We made a snake stick with a capture loop out of a paint pole and went back up stairs. Dang snake was gone, but no fresh skin. He will be back and I'll keep looking for him/her.:eek::eek:
 
Yeah, Just waiting for my first snake sighting of the season. Weather is really nice so should be pretty soon. Got the magic snake head eraser all tuned up and ready to go.
 
Yeah, Just waiting for my first snake sighting of the season. Weather is really nice so should be pretty soon. Got the magic snake head eraser all tuned up and ready to go.

Had one of those once... back in my mid-teens, I was visiting a cousin over in a little town in central Texas... the city reservoir had so many cotton mouths swimming around in it, they almost looked like an infestation of black maggots... he and I sat up on a bank and shot up 2 full boxes of .22 long rifles...don't know how many, we "erased" that day, but didn't make that much of a dent in the population.
 
Top