Extension cords gave me quite a shock

I keep 200 feet of extension cords rolled up on an old contraption I made at least 30 years ago. I don't use the cords much so I keep it in the red barn by the garden.

Today I was doing some work on the lower garden, so I hauled out the cords to run them up to the house. While I was taking the contraption out of the barn, a snake poked its head out of one of the holes on the side.

I jumped back. Maybe not a world's record long jump but a fair distance considering I was going backwards. Mr. Snake retreated inside the drum.

I beat on the outside of the drum to try to get him to come out, but it refused. I started taking the apparatus a part, and about that time the slithering started. What I thought was a small snake turned out to be about a five-footer.

If something is not a water moccasin or a copperhead, I call it a chicken snake. I assume that's what it was. It slithered away in the grass. I started to whack it for giving me such a fright, but our field mice population has been a little boisterous this summer, so I let it glide away.

Don't worry. I'm retiring the extension cord holder. It's in tiny pieces now.