Covington la, around about early 1980s listening to the radio singing along with a song driving to a fencing appointment late August. I arrive at the address noticing the property was very overgrown, and the grass hadn’t been mowed in a while. Getting out of my car, 3 or 4 dogs came running 90 miles an hour to attack me. I get back into the car. This was before cell phones, and I wasn’t getting out of the car with three dogs barking and running around like they wanted to tear me apart. Soon, a neighbor came out and told the dogs to sit, and they did. I got out of the car talking to the older man. This woman came out of the house screaming at me that I was late, and she didn’t want an appointment any more, “thank you.” I say no problem!!! have a nice day!!!. I am headed back to the car; she yells, are the siding man “right”?? NO, lady, I am the fence man, “oh” I want a fence estimate; why didn’t you say you were the fenceman. Lady, I don’t remember you giving me a chance to say who I was ,”you attacked.” This lady is huge, and I am talking large, at least 500 pounds, if I was to guess. She told me to follow her around to the back of the yeard; she would show me what to measure. “I only want to leave now”, “she has pissed me off”. This lady’s property is overgrown, and that is A understatement. The grass may not have been mowed in months or years.
She led me to the back of the property to measure her fence yard, it Sloples down about 30 feet, and there was a three-foot spring running across her property about a foot deep with running water.

I take my 50’ measureing tape over to the right side of the property to measure this fence line. The overgrowth made it hard to see any thing and my tape tangled on a log laying in the fence line. I reached down to untangle the tape to my great surprise this 6 foot or so water moccasin was now in my hand ,it was trying to bite me, he lunged, I moved my hand up the snake below his head, he wrapped his whole body around my arm, his head was turning around my hand, he was, or she was powerful and not happy. I turned to the lady for help; she saw the snake, passed out, and started rolling down the hill to the stream; she splashes in. I ran down to the creek with a snake in hand and pull her face out from underwater, and she is still passed out. I tied her hair around a root to keep her from drowning. I head up the hill, I see the next-door neighbor, and I scream for him to get help; he screams back that he won’t get involved, he goes into his house. The snake and I are not happy with each other I am trying to put his head in between a screen door to pinch it off; I am not a snake person,i don’t like being around them and most certinlly not to hold one. The lady awakes , I hear a scream from the stream and run down the hill, the woman being so large she has damed up the water now it is flowin over the top of her, she is in real trouble. I lifted her head again, but I had to untie her hair because it was now holding her head underwater. I hear police sirens and assume the older man must have called the police; a few minutes later, with a woman’s head just barely above water; “I hear a policeman telling me to put my hands up. I say to him that I can’t. “I have a woman’s head”, It will go underwater, he yells again, let me see your hands , or he will shoot; there is now about nine cops all around me, guns drawn, and this huge woman with her head I am holding with one my arm ,her tent for a dress is now covering both of us, we are hiding under somewhat of a tent,water going all around both her and me. The cops with guns are screaming at me to stand up. Finally, one of the cops goes to the other side of the stream looking me straight in the eyes, and tells me to get up again; “I tell him I can’t !!!!!!!”, he sees the snake on my arm, he puts his gun away walks over. I tell the story real quick as everyone tries to get this woman out of the stream.

One of the police officers takes out a very sharp knife and cuts the snake’s head off, blood everywhere. We turn around; the woman is in worse shape. She has the stream completely blocked with no water going around her, and it is now going over the top of her. The cop in charge gets some shovels from her deck, and they dig a channel around her; this saves her from drowning. They work for an hour without luck getting women out of the ditch. Police knock down an old fence and bring in a backhoe from a construction site down the road, still no luck. Firemen that had just arrived stated they had a leather harness they lifted some large animal out of a ditch a few days earlier(I didn’t want to say cow; it wouldn’t be politically correct). After digging, damning, redirecting, and securing a leather strap around her body, they lifted her out of the ditch. The woman looked like she had been beaten; as they lay her on the gurney with police, her husband, and many neighbors, she screams at me look what you have done!!!!

Just another exciting day for the lonely fencman!!!!!!!