The
Trew Ranch has always been a bit "snaky." We have miles of caprock ledges and
canyons that provide many homes for snakes.
From
1949 to about 1960, we had three resident prairie dog towns located on the ranch.
Between the dog towns and the canyons, we would harvest a quart jar full of rattlesnake
rattles each summer.
No person was ever snakebit that I remember, but
cattle, horses
and dogs became
victims each year. Snake
sightings dropped drastically after the demise of the dog towns.
The Rana
Ranch in New Mexico continued to produce more than its share of rattlers,
even though no dog towns were present. A day's ride in summertime always harvested
a rattling souvenir or two, some more than 2 inches long as displayed in a memory
box in our home.
We can tell stories for hours about snakes
and snaky experiences.
In 2003, I killed two large, almost black diamondback
coon-tail rattlers in our backyard at Alanreed.
It had been years since we had seen this type of snake, especially in our yards.
In 2004, I killed three more, the same size, color and type. I began to suspect
they were littermates from a nearby den. We began looking for snake holes each
time we left the yards.
In 2005, I found three more of the same type and
markings, but maybe a little larger and longer than the others. I think they even
had the same family names - at least, that is what I called them when I found
them. We were convinced we had a snake facility and factory somewhere close by.
Then came 2006 and the million-acre range fires during which almost every acre
on the ranch burned. We had two long rows of junk collected down through the years
and piled down under the hill west of the house that burned all but the scrap
iron. I hauled it to Amarillo
and proceeded to clean up the junk pile area.
The last item was a rusted,
500-gallon gas storage tank I had used as a trash burner at one time. It was standing
upright, welded to two pipe skids. I tied on with my tractor and pulled it backward
on its way to the landfill.
Something caught my eye, and looked to see
the spot under the tank was clean and polished, as if sanded by sandpaper or maybe
snake bellies. Sure enough, coiled in the center of the area was the largest diamondback
rattler I had found so far. It was a snake den, no doubt, as the polished area
proved, plus, a ridge of black snake manure had been pushed out around the edges.
So, a snake den does not have to be a hole or cave in the ground. They
are very adaptable to use any shelter, such as a protected place in your junk
pile.
Since that time, I have found only one small prairie rattler in my
yard. My snake
plague has ended.
© Delbert Trew
"It's
All Trew" October
13, 2009 Column
E-mail: trewblue@centramedia.net.
More
on Snakes
| Texas Animals |
