July 18, 2012 RJ & His Rattler



The snake's rattles!


It had stopped raining by the time I left for Larry's and Elsie's at about 8:00 a.m. on Monday.  I have been seeing a lot more rabbits and chipmunks than usual along the road.  Looks like we have a bumper crop of both this year.  Things pretty much got drenched in the early morning rain so I just fed the chickens and cats.  The chickens had given me six eggs Saturday evening and nine on Sunday.  With the extra time I had for leaving the dogs alone, on my way back home I drove up to see RJ who had got Up Here on Sunday.  It seems that within a couple hours of his arrival he heard a rattle snake in a pile of wood as he walked by.  Couldn't find it, so a couple hours later he came back and there it was, coiled up in front of a log.  He started to draw his small .22 pistol that he keeps loaded with snake shot, but as he got closer he muttered out loud, "Oh, Hell No!", as he realized how big it was.  He quickly went back into the cabin for Grandpa Herb's shot gun.  Aiming into the coiled viper, he almost blew it in half.  Now these reptiles don't die easily, and even when they are dead their body doesn't realize it.  The front half of the snake was struggling to get back into the wood pile, but the dead back end was too heavy to pull.  So it latched on to a log with its fangs, and it took RJ a good 20 minutes to pull it off using his walking stick.  The snake measured 37" long from the tip of its head to the end of its rattles.  He cut off the head and the nine (!!) rattles, then used the rest of it to try to teach Mindy, Mike's dog, to stay away from them.  Of course the body flipped around for almost an hour, and at one point the headless end lifted up and "looked" at Mindy.  Even as it lay there, little puffs of dust arose from that headless end - still breathing!  They are freakier dead than alive.

When I finally got back to Rose Camp, I worked on the stream bed for a few hours.  Our neighbors were staying up in their yurt for the weekend and came to visit for a few hours in the afternoon.  Always an enjoyable time, and they plan to be up a few more times this year.

RJ came up for dinner, and we both enjoyed a big pot of chili that I had made.  He is going to finish his deck this week and the lumber for it was going to be delivered on Tuesday.  By the end of that busy day, I practically fell into bed at 8:30 pm. . .

Yesterday I spent almost all day working on the creek bed.  It is basically a mosaic, as I am placing each stone in, one by one.  Like a doing a puzzle with only a very general idea of how it is going to turn out.  But it is a very pleasant and relaxing project to do and I am pleased with the results so far.  Very time consuming though.  All these hours I have put into it, and it isn't even half done.

Rather belatedly I realized that there was so much going on Monday that I forgot to do the laundry.  So I did a load yesterday and will do another one today.  Very easy to forget what day it is Up Here, especially when you are alone.  Plus, I am not nearly as schedule oriented as JB is, or as many of us affectionately call him - anal.

I was awakened in the middle of Monday night and realized there was a mouse flipping about in the trap.  In my muddled, 2:30 a.m. mind I thought I would just drop it out of the trap into a bag, then take it outside and let it go as it just had its leg caught.  He obviously wasn't hurt very badly, because as soon as he hit that bag he was gone!  Note to self:  do NOT take live mouse out of trap until you are outside.  When I got up in the morning he was back in the trap.  Only this time he was dead.  And now this morning there are two mice dead in the bathroom traps.  Five mice in less than two weeks!  I hope that is all of them.  Will be so glad when JB gets home. . .

The dogs and I took a nice long walk down the road in the late afternoon.  Turned out to be a very pleasant day with rain in the very early morning and a high of only 72.

Thought for the day: Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart, and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.  Winston Churchill