Snakes and Spiders and things that crawl

After living 30 years on the west side of the Cascades in the Pacific NW, I also dreaded the nasty critters that inhabit the southern states. I'd been stationed in FL, and seen most everthing that bites or stings humans there. I learned that different parts of TX have different things to look out for. The first house we lived in was mostly free of pests, but I got stung badly by a furry little thing known as a tree asp. Seventeen years later, I still feel a burning on my arm where it contacted his "fur".

Our second house was in an area frequented by copperheads. One even managed to get in the house. I killed several in ten years.

We moved again and I never saw a snake there, but scorpions and black widows were a glut. Just last week, I was in that vacant house and found a scorpion caught in the web of a brown recluse spider.

We're now in yet another house, and according to the neighbors, the worst wild creatures are skunks and cottontails. So far, so good...I've only seen cottontails.