After A Dead Snake

Earlier this week, I met a rattlesnake in the wild for the first time. (And a scorpion, but that story is much less eventful. It mostly consisted of the scorpion sitting on the ground beside a shed when we uncovered his hiding spot.) Up until now, my experience with these creatures has been essentially theoretical: from books, glass cages at the zoo and the section on venomous snakes and other animals in my Wilderness First Responder training. But maybe I should set the scene first.

I arrived in Tucson, Arizona on Halloween, after a series of bus drivers who spoke minimal English (but still more than I could comprehend in Spanish these days), a lovely evening catching up with Julie in Albuquerque and a mostly sleepless night on a hostel bunk. My plan? WWOOFing. I had sent out several messages to various hosts over the past weeks, most of which had either been at capacity or not desiring of helpers at the time. Finally, Anna replied. She had space; I could come at any time.

So, on Halloween, Anna picked me up at the bus station. After helping unload her daughter’s furniture from the truck into her new house we hit the road again. An hour later, having passed the small town of Benson and followed small, dusty roads for about twenty minutes, we were definitely in the middle of nowhere. The welcoming committee at the gate of Lonely Coconut Ranch consisted of two Chihuahuas and a very enthusiastic young hound dog named Lily.

The ranch itself, located on a mesquite bosque, in reality consists mostly of mesquite trees and desert grasses and a few cacti. Most of the property is unused; the house and various buildings (toolshed, studio, another shed), a small vegetable garden and even smaller chicken coop, some ramshackle trailers surrounded by piles of junk, the outdoor cobb bathroom and the bunkhouse where volunteers stay are all contained within a less than half of the five acres. We set to cleaning out the rather neglected bunkhouse, where I discovered a few places where a rodent had removed insulation foam in a bid for freedom. Anna said we’d add filling up those holes to the list of projects for future days.

I settled in, played with the dogs, got acquainted with my surroundings, had dinner and went to bed. (I was still exhausted from the numerous bus rides and the sleepless night, not to mention a bit of shock at suddenly being in a desert.) In the morning, I sang myself a birthday song and went about the day’s tasks: pulling out frostbitten tomatoes (the chickens were delighted!) and turning a large section of the garden to prepare for next year’s crops. After lunch, we rummaged through boxes stored beside the bunkhouse in search of dyes for a project Anna had in mind. When I later thundered back into the bunkhouse for the first time since breakfast, I heard an odd hissing sound. Though my first thought was that someone was letting air out of a bicycle tire, I quickly wised up when I remembered what sorts of critters might live in the area. After a perfunctory peek towards the sound’s origin, I tore out of the bunkhouse and halfway to the main house before stopping and creeping back to do a more thorough assessment of the situation. That was definitely a rattlesnake, coiled up underneath the dresser, triangular head pointed in my direction, rattling when I got too close.

Anna said her neighbor had a device that would allow a person to grab a snake from a distance. I entertained myself far away from the bunkhouse for a few hours, and when we went back, device in hand, the snake was nowhere to be seen. Or heard. Anna and her friend Preston stomped and poked around for a good while, as I cowered in the doorway. We determined he must have relocated himself, I ensured that the door was all the way shut and made sure I brought my flashlight to the house at dinnertime. Walking back in the dark, everything looked like a snake, but I made it to bed with no further incident, and thought no more about it. Not even when I heard a rustling in the corner after I settled into my sleeping bag and turned the lights out.

Then next morning passed much the same way. Right up to the part where I got hissed at walking back into my living quarters after lunch! This time, I noticed the rattler was hanging out right by one of the rodent holes I’d discovered while cleaning, the same corner from which rustling had emanated the previous night. Luckily we still had the grabber. Anna couldn’t have had a more perfect shot if she had tried; we caught the snake just behind the head on our first try. When we brought it outside to kill it, the dogs hovered and barked from a safe distance. (Lily still goes on high alert when she enters the bunkhouse now, poised and sniffing cautiously toward that particular corner.) The snake’s body now rests (in pieces) in a bin far from the house. Once it rots and insects clean away the flesh, Anna will clean the bones and use them in jewelry and other of her crafts.

Moral of the story: I still enter the bunkhouse very slowly and check in corners and under furniture before moving beyond the doorway. I know that the exposed wiring, water lines and roots in the road are not snakes, but I still approach them cautiously when walking back at night. So I’m a little jumpy. I guess I’m okay with that; I’d rather be that than bitten. Maybe I’ll brush up on venomous creatures in my WFR field book. And I should probably find that foam Anna thinks she has and plug up those holes in my house!

When Preston was here the other day, he mentioned that the town was named after a rattlesnake. Curious, I remembered that the nearest ‘town’-type place is called Cascabel. According to Wikipedia, cascabel comes from the Spanish word for 'rattle', the town named by a guy who met a Mexican fellow holding a rattlesnake he had just killed.  Fitting, I guess, that I encountered one on my first day here!

Sorry Dom, I wasn't able to get photos while he was still alive...

...but here he is still squirming around post-mortem.

This doesn't actually have anything to do with the previous pictures. I just found a snakeskin on my walk!

I know I’ve promised a lot of people location updates and status reports as I go about my travels. Problem is, I’ve probably forgotten if I promised you anything particular. This is my attempted solution, since I do have occasional internet access here at LCR but no phone signal. If I’ve forgotten to mention something you wanted to know, or you’d rather have conversations, I love getting email notes and promise to respond! I’ll be here the next few weeks or so before moving on to who-knows-where.