Monday, September 7, 2015

Painting! and Snake Wrangling

I have finally managed to pick up a brush and start painting some mini's.  OK, I just primed them but it still involved a brush.  Yesterday, I primed the 38 plastic Perry 28mm US Continentals (AWI) along with a mounted command figure from Fife and Drum.  I'm trying to vary my painting techniques and decided to use a brush on primer rather than use a spray on version.

My primer of choice are the Vallejo surface primers.  The local hobby shop had a sale on these so I've stocked up.  I still stuck with a light grey as a primer color since these guys will all be wearing white pants, vests and webbing.

Unfortunately my painting bliss was interupted by my wife yelling for me to get outside.  Her tone of voice had a bit of alarm in it so I sprang to action.  It's times like these where having ones own action theme music would come in handy.

What was causing the constern - this attractive young lady...


A rather large (6 feet) water snake that was snoozing next to our grill.  I got out my trusty snake - wrangling tool and set to work moving the snake out of the way.  These beauties are mice killing machines so you actually want them around the house but just not in plain sight.

So what is this tool?  A pool skimmer


These snakes are constrictors and if you grab them behind the head they will wrap around your arm and are both difficult to dislodge and one can injure the animal while getting them loose (I learned the hard way).  With the pool skimmer, you can prod them to an open area and then place the skimmer in front. I think it looks like a cave and they crawl right into the bag and they're easy to carry away.   Of course getting them to stay in the bag during transport (roughly 250 ft) is another thing.  The photo below swows her just before being released.  Hopefully todays painting will have no reptile intrusions!







6 comments:

marinergrim said...

And I thought a puppy was bad enough!

The Angry Lurker said...

Great work,the next Steve Irwin?

DeanM said...

Wow - forgot all about snakes living here in the cool, wet, Pacific NW. That's a big snake and could do harm to people and pets. Nice job getting it back to the water.

Paul O'G said...

Are you sure you dont have any Australian blood? Proud of you!

Millsy said...

Crikey. If I tried to capture my local slithery wildlife with a pool skimmer I'd be calling the ambos 5 minutes later. Speaking of pool skimmers, you look like you need to use yours a bit more. The colour of that water mate!!!

jmilesr said...

Mr Millsy I'm trying to clean up the Chesapeake with some oyster floats - every little bit helps.

The snake is harmless and eats a lot of mice so you want to keep me around but maybe not next to the house!