Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Conquering Fear, One Hiss at a Time

Okay, I’m just going to admit it: I don’t hate snakes. I know, sounds weird coming from a girlie-girl, but I actually find them intriguing, sometimes even beautiful. I will hold a non-venomous snake provided some know-what-he’s-doing male has a nice strong grip on the snake’s business-end. But do I love snakes? Um, no. Do I have a healthy fear of them? Darn tootin’.

Here’s the thing, I married the kind of man who rescues all creatures from harm’s way. It’s one of the many things I love about him. But it does keep me guessing—is he going to bring home an injured falcon? Or a tarantula that was crossing the road? Between the man and our two sons I had to expect that there would one day be a reptile aquarium in my house. Do I like it? Not really, but again, I’m okay with the snakes as long as I don’t have to reach my hand inside their cage. Especially since one of the gopher snakes is cranky, hissy and strikes at anything that goes near the glass.

A few weeks ago, while I was in the Samhain Café celebrating the release of my second book, my eldest yelled, “Come quick! One of the snakes laid eggs!”

Come to find out we had a mating pair of gopher snakes. Who knew? Sure enough, the female was coiled around a clutch of eggs. (The female—go figure—is the cranky, hissy, wanting-to-bite-everything snake.)

My husband found instructions on the internet about how to hatch gopher snake eggs. He told me that once the hardware store opened we had to buy a container for an incubator, a heating pad and some stuff called vermiculite. We had to move fast. The aquarium wasn’t warm enough or humid enough. Those eggs had to be put into the incubator STAT!

I nodded my head, agreeing with everything until I heard the next part. “And you’ll have to be careful to keep the eggs in the exact position in which they were laid. They can’t turn at all.”

Wait…what? He couldn’t be serious. I had to reach my hand inside the cage? Me, the girlie-girl steal eggs from a mother snake? Gulp. “You just fed her, right?” I asked.

“No. She wouldn’t eat. Makes sense. She can’t constrict her prey with eggs in her belly,” he explained.

“So she’s mean, protective, recovering from labor, and STARVING?”

“Get to the store as soon as it opens.” He kissed me and on his way out the door. “And don’t jostle the eggs when you take them out.”

With my trembling hands? Was he serious?

It was right about then that I realized something about myself—I may not hate snakes, but I was terrified of this one. There was no way in the universe I was going to put my hand inside that cage. No way. No how.

But something stronger than fear burned in my chest—the mother instinct. My hands shook, sweat collected above my lip, and my heart pounded, but if I didn’t get those babies to the proper temperature and humidity, they would die. It was as simple as that.

So I swallowed my fear and stole six eggs right from under the mean mother snake. She didn’t bite me. Maybe she knew I was trying to save her babies. Maybe. And I learned a little about my fears and courage in the process. I’m stronger than I knew. Who knew? And those eggs are incubating in my kitchen, right next to the stove. If all goes well, I’ll have half a dozen baby snakes slithering around on my linoleum.

Um, can I come live with you?

www.kimberleytroutte.com
SOUL STEALER, Out now
CATCH ME IN CASTILE, Out now