Meet Frank

When you purchase an old farm house, you have to accept the fact that there are permanent inhabitants. Some are friends and some are foe. It's important to know the difference.

For instance, when I see a mouse in my house or in the milk house where the feed/grain is kept, they are an enemy. They eat my food and that of the sheep and chickens. They need to go.

The wild barn cat is definitely a friend who will help eliminate the mice. We call her Tiger Kitty. She came with the place. She was not at all fond of people when we moved in and we would very rarely see her. Then in the winter, we started putting out a little cat food for her every few days. Then she would seek us out and coax us into following her to the barn to feed her. Little by little her trust grew and she ended up sleeping on the porch with our cats last winter and eating with them. Even though she still won't let me hold her, she will pester me until I scratch her head. Just today, she stood on a railing in the barn as I scratched her head and she actually snuggled up into my sweatshirt, purring and purring. She's discovered how nice the human touch can be.

There was another permanent resident who greeted me shortly after moving here. We have named him Frank. He is a Rat Snake. He is actually in the friend category. He dines on rats and mice, so he's helping with the enemy mentioned above. Here are some facts about the Rat Snake.

• The common rat snake is medium-sized, averaging 3.5' to 6' (up to 8') in length.
• Common rat snakes tend to be shy.
• Rat snakes produce a foul-smelling musk and release it on the predator if they are picked up.
• Common rat snakes are excellent climbers and spend a lot of time in trees.
• Rat snakes are very useful around barns and in farming communities because they help control pest populations.
• Due to people's lack of knowledge and fear of snakes, rat snakes continue to be the victim of human persecution. They are actually endangered in Massachusetts.
  

We came home from breakfast this morning and Colton asked if we'd seen the snake skin in the maple tree right outside our house. We checked and sure enough, there was Frank's skin. I was able to get it out of the tree intact and it was well over 6 feet long. You see Colton holding it here and he's probably 6'0" with his sneakers on. It was the entire skin, including the head, as you can see the eyes. We've collected two other skins in our cellar, but they were only partial.












I found the picture of the snake in the tree and the "facts" on: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/Facts/FactSheets/Blackratsnake.cfm