I don’t know how Samuel L. Jackson would feel about it, but most of us here love snakes. Especially King Snakes. Louis found this guy up by the top of our man-made Lake Charles Falls. Normally, we don’t disturb the wildlife, but our friend here wasn’t living up to his potential in the woods. He’s needed down in the pasture which is being overrun with gophers and moles. Good thing gophers and moles is his business!

The King Snake looks ferocious. And he is if you are a rodent. He’ll crush the life out of you and have you for lunch. But for those of us of the human or terrier persuasion, he’s harmless. In fact, he is not a rattlesnake. He just plays one on the ground. He’ll mimic a rattlesnake’s defensive postures and even shake his [rattleless] tail. If he’s sitting in dry grass, the rustle just might fool you. But his main defense is limited to urinating on you with a somewhat foul-tasting liquid to discourage you from consuming him.

His markings were beautiful and he felt smooth and cool.

But as I said, the King Snake is a voracious consumer of pests, including the aforementioned gophers and moles, and up to and including rattlesnakes! So far, the rattlesnakes have been behaving themselves, so I have no beef with them. Especially as they consume rodent critters as well. But it’s nice to have a King Snake on your side.

As I said, this guy wasn’t living up to his potential up in the woods. So we took him down to the Goat Rocks in the pasture, where we hope he’ll find a Smörgåsbord of tasty rodents.

John the Baptist demonstrates that our snake is a good sized boy who should have a lot of rodent eating in his future.

And, of course, a fellow this important deserves a name. All the key animals at Two Terrier Vineyards are named. There’s really only one name for a Crawlin’ King Snake, isn’t there? Gotta call him after the man who wrote the song, the great blues man John Lee Hooker.

So meet Hooker the King Snake. And here to sing him out is Muddy Waters, since I couldn’t find a live John Lee Hooker version on YouTube. Sing it, Muddy! Go get’em, Hooker.

You know you caught me crawlin’ baby,

When the grass was very high

I’m just gonna keep on crawlin’ now baby until the day I die,

‘Cause I’m a crawlin’ kingsnake baby, and I rules my den