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| Photo courtesy of my friend, Corinne Milwee Farley |
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| Crawdad |
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| Crawdad Hole |
CRAWDAD HOLES can be dangerous as you walk around. At least they are surrounded by mounds of mud balls to warn you. But, they certainly make the yard look unsightly. That's why my dad was constantly warring with the CRAWDADS.
He poured carbide into the holes and added hot water. It worked for a while. As the carbide started bubbling, the CRAWDAD would fly out of the hole to escape. However, Dad was waiting for them with his hoe. That CRAWDAD was no longer a problem.
I wrote a story about a CRAWDAD HOLE incident when I was a kid. I'll share it with you now.
THE CRAWDAD HOLE
I closed my eyes and screamed until my four-year-old voice bounced off the mountains. In mere seconds, my mom, still in her robe and with pin curls crowning her head, and my dad, his face partially covered in fluffy mounds of shaving cream and with a razor in his hand flung open the screen door and ran across the porch. My mom twirled me around. I suppose she expected to find blood spilling onto the steps. Finding none, they shouted in unison, “What’s wrong?”
“A snake!” I pointed at the concrete step just below where I stood and squeezed my eyes shut, perhaps thinking it couldn’t see me if I couldn’t see it.
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| These are the steps where I saw the snake |
Heaving a sigh and shaking his head, Dad said, “There’s no snake there.”
Opening one eye, I gasped in disbelief. There was no snake. I looked at each of the eight steps and then into the yard beyond and could see no snake. “It was there. I saw it. It was all curled up in a pile.
Mom said, “Ehhhh, It was probably a worm,” and turned to go back inside the house.
“No, it wasn’t a worm. It was sticking its tongue out at me. Worms don’t have tongues.” I placed one hand on my hip and tilted my chin in the air, sure of my superior knowledge.
“Ehhhhh, if there was one, it’s gone now.” Shaving cream dripped off Dad’s chin and plopped on the floorboards.
“What if it bites me?”
Dad sighed and walked down the steps, dressed in his shorts, wife-beater t-shirt, and bare flat feet to check it out. He knew I would never step into the yard if there was a possibility of a snake lying in wait. I stood on the steps and watched as he looked behind the concrete stoop and then peered into the crawdad holes that flanked the homemade flagstone walkway. Crawdads were a constant nuisance in our yard. Heaping piles of mud balls surrounded each hole that made them unsightly as well as a danger for anyone walking across the yard. The prescribed remedy was to drop some carbide rocks into each hole and follow that with boiling water. When it started bubbling up, the crawdad would either come out of the hole or die inside.
“Well, Gert, just to make sure, why don’t you go put a pot of water on to boil and we’ll pour some down these crawdad holes. It coulda gone down one of them. What’d that snake look like, Karen?”
“It was big and black and yellow stripied and was all curled up and sticking its pink tongue out at me.”
“Sounds like a garter snake.”
I stood on the porch and kept my eyes peeled for the snake as Dad went inside to finish shaving his face and Mom boiled some water. I didn’t want it coming after me, but I sure wanted to prove to Mom and Dad that I really saw a snake. It didn’t matter what kind of snake—it was a snake.
Mom finally pushed open the screen door with her rump and maneuvered the oversized pot she used for canning, steaming with hot water, across the porch and down the steps.
“Get out of the way, Karen. Don’t trip me with this water.” My petite mother grunted as she poured a little water into each hole. She stood back and looked at each one to see if a snake came out. Nothing happened. She was about to give up when my dad came back outside and suggested she pour the rest of it into the biggest hole right next to the bottom step. She leaned her five-foot-tall body nearly down to the hole and poured.
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| She was right about in the same spot when she poured the hot water into the CRAWDAD HOLE |
Just as the final dregs flowed into the hole, and her face was about twelve inches from it, the snake flew straight up out of the hole and into her face. She screamed as she jumped backward and flung the pot across the yard. Actually, we all screamed. I’m not quite sure what happened after that. There was a lot of screaming and confusion as that big pot continued to bounce across the yard and mom jumped up and down flailing. Dad grabbed the hoe leaning up against the porch and ran after the snake, chopping it into tiny pieces. I guess he wanted to make sure that little worm was dead.
Did you grow up with CRAWDAD HOLES in your yard? Ever find any snakes inside?
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