God Sent a Rattlesnake

 God Sent a Rattlesnake 

       By: Anna Shea 

Age 13

Chris Shea, who lives in Choctaw County, Mississippi, had been studying snakes lately, and if you showed him a snake he could probably tell you exactly what it was. 

   After church on this special Sunday, he made himself a cup of coffee and he was planning to have a calm relaxing afternoon, until he heard his rat terrier, named Buster, barking. He knew this wasn’t Buster’s ordinary bark, it was his bark dedicated solely to snakes.  Chris walked down the ramp of his deck rounded the corner and couldn’t believe what he saw. A five-foot timber (canebrake) rattler was 20 feet from his house.

He knew that snakes could get away and disappear very quickly, so while trying to keep an eye on it, he called his daughter, Anna Kate, to help. He ran back to the house to get his phone, then back to the snake and started photographing it. He said, “Not many photographers get this chance”. 

His daughter came out and saw the snake. Chris told her to go get a bucket with a lid and a garden hoe. She kept a safe distance from the snake and did what her father told her. She ran to the barn and retrieved the items. Chris took a few more photos of this beautiful snake, then used the hoe to pick it up in the middle and carefully placed it in the bucket. The snake tried to come out several times, but he pushed it back in using the hoe. When the snake was settled in, he slowly came in from the side and placed the top on the bucket. 

They loaded the bucket into the back of his truck, then drove to the Tombigbee National Forest, and relocated the snake. They removed the top, and gently knocked the bucket over. The rattler came out and disappeared into the tall grass. 

On the way home, Chris stated to his daughter that God must have put it on his mind to study snakes so that on this day he would know exactly what it was he was dealing with and everybody would be safe throughout the process.

So that was the story of the day that

Chris Shea caught a canebrake rattler. 

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