Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Kingcreek on May 08, 2016, 09:16:20 PM
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We have lived out here in our woodland paradise for 20 years. Today I had a close encounter with a large timber rattler. As in snake. Poisonous. As in big as a bicycle tire but smaller than my wrist.
I was going to remove my truck toolbox so I could haul a couple loads of bulk mulch. I had a couple sawhorses I needed in the woodshed where I keep the logsplitter and about 3 cord of seasoned hardwood. apparently I also keep big snakes in there. I never saw the whole snake but the part I saw was as long as my arm. Got a real good look at the buzzing tail as that was the only part visible after my initial somewhat exhited reaction and exit. I haven't jumped that high since high school basketball 40 years ago and my wife heard me shout from 200 feet away.
Sorry no pics. They are on the threatened list here in Illinois.
I've seen some big bill snakes around but this one caused me to have a purple faced bug eyed screaming bad word fit!
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I'm scared s***less of snakes, probably as a result of something that happened when I was very young. IMHO, rattlesnakes should be endangered. If they want to stay out in the woods, that's one thing. Come in my woodshed and you're history.
S,S, & S U.
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... What on earth are you supposed to do with a venomous snake in your shed/house or other people occupied areas if you aren't allowed to kill it?
Please, tell me that some agency (animal control or some such) will come and remove them IMMEDIATELY for free.
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This would seem tailor-made for the Three S Solution: shoot, shovel and shut up.
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Not bad fried in butter and garlic with saute'd morels and fried potatoes n onions n bacon crumbles n some melted cheese.
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This woodshed is kinda out by itself behind the barn and I rarely have reason to be in there in warm weather. I will definitely tread lightly around there from now on. Probably less chance of finding a mouse nest in the log splitter manifold next fall. I'm not usually bothered by snakes but I admit this one shook me up some.
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...Got a real good look at the buzzing tail as that was the only part visible after my initial somewhat exhited reaction and exit. I haven't jumped that high since high school basketball...
I've told this before...
My one and only close encounter with a rattler was up on the Grasslands. At the sound, I automatically leaped about four feet away.
By "automatically," I mean I didn't even integrate the sound in my head, I just jumped away before I even recognized what it was. It was like there was a previously-unknown-by-science buzz detector in my ears which bypassed any brain function and sent the jump signal directly to my legs. It wasn't like a plain old startle reaction, like someone yelling boo. Wasn't even that loud.
Then I located it. Small one. I let it go. It wasn't till I walked a couple of dozen feet away that I realized that I had leaped so automatically, without thinking about it. I'm not sure if it was dumb luck or what that I jumped away from it instead of toward it.
Hope that stays as my one and only encounter. I'll never forget that leap I made without even thinking about it.
I've heard of young horses who could not possibly have "learned" that response, leaping away the first time they do hear it. Not buck or rear or anything, just an instant leap away. Told to me by an old-timer after I related that story to him.
Now that story doesn't grant me any credentials, but it strikes me that I wouldn't tread lightly in that shed. I'd stomp around in boots to alert any snakes, and listen for the rattle Might give them a chance to hightail it. Or slither it. Or for you to locate it and elim...
Oh, wait. Endangered species, eh? Well, you're not engaged in the sport of hunting them, so there must be some exceptions for this kind of situation, no?
Terry
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I have parked a sturdy stick at the door which will from this day forward be used to thoroughly whack, probe, and prod any dark corners before reaching for anything.
I don't want to kill it or remove it. It got that big by eating the things that eat the wiring and build nests in air cleaners and manifolds of some of the gas powered things I use. Ill leave it alone. I just don't want to see it again up close or hear that harsh buzz.
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Not bad fried in butter and garlic with saute'd morels and fried potatoes n onions n bacon crumbles n some melted cheese.
I recall the Alfred Hitchcock teevee show where the murderess cooked and fed to the police hte murder weapon: a frozen leg of lamb. This does it one better by eating the murder victim.
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Not bad fried in butter and garlic with saute'd morels and fried potatoes n onions n bacon crumbles n some melted cheese.
Well, just about anything even remotely edible would be good done up that way. Protein is protein.
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I recall the Alfred Hitchcock teevee show where the murderess cooked and fed to the police hte murder weapon: a frozen leg of lamb. This does it one better by eating the murder victim.
That was from a book or short story but I can't remember the author. I remember reading it when I was about 10 or 11.