Encounters of the rattler kind; fall colors beginning to show on the hills

By Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker

As someone who for most of her life coexisted with snakes pretty well, really not having a whole lot of contact with them other than the occasional surprise, I seem to have an awful lot of them knocking on my door. It was like that with cats until I mentally went down and hung a no-vacancy sign on the front gate. Spaying and neutering didn't put a dent in the population. I had a lot of them here and more fuzz balls kept coming. The mental vibe thing has seemed to work but it took me years and hordes of cats before I caught on.

It's just that I'm not really sure where to put up a snake no-vacancy sign. They are everywhere, in the barn, in the house, the yard, out by the chile piquin bushes, in the trees, sashaying across the road. I even had to stop my late night computer work to take one away from an arthritic cat trying to defend his privacy under my work table. It would be nice if the jolt from an unexpected snake lessened with overexposure but it absolutely stays the same. I'm tiring of involuntarily bolting sideways mid-step while letting out a stream of cuss words mixed in a shriek. At this rate I don't have to worry about dimming mentally as I age, certainly no crossword puzzles for me in the twilight years. I'll be so agile and alert no one will believe I'm a hundred years old and leaping that high.

Last summer the snake of the day was rat snakes. They got so chummy I was throwing them out of the house by the bucketfuls. Our neighbor happily told me that taking them across the creek was not nearly far away enough. He said rat snakes had a homing instinct that brought them right back. Maybe I was removing the same one over and over but they all looked new to me. There was an occasional rattlesnake just to keep me twitching. Sissy has dealt with rattlesnakes pretty well but I'm not cool like she is when moving them along. I tend to start thinking of all they might be able to do. I never have the instrument at hand that I need and the only shovel nearby doesn't have a handle ten feet long. Just walking around, feeding the chickens and cattle and all, I do not wear a pistol on the hip. I always forget it and it's too heavy anyway.

But just the other day it sure would have been good to have the old blaster in hand.

It was 11 in the morning and I needed one more egg to round out a dozen I was compiling. I went up to the chicken house to see if they had one. It is just a few steps to the door after entering the open pen, and I reached down to take away the pipe I keep there to ward off coyotes. A thrashing began three feet to my left. I can't say whether I just looked over or was mid-air flying to the right when I saw it, but there was a stove pipe-sized snake taking itself away. Clearly the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen, it was a black phase one with dark diamonds and rattles reaching halfway across the pen. Then it finally started to rattle. It shot through some chicken wire and through an open wire grid panel and it was planning on making it to a hideout in the carriage shed. But its morning work was interrupted. It had been sunning itself outside the chicken house after an early morning meal, which looked to be the size of a small squirrel, and that lump in its long form got stuck in the wire. I yelled at the dogs to get back, then whacked it on the half that was on my side of the wire. Its front end was striking and snarling and trying to come back through and get me. When I was pretty sure it was going nowhere easily I ran for my shotgun. A rattler that size just cannot be allowed to get away to show again. It happened two years ago in the darkness of the barn and it wasn't going to this time if I could help it. I loaded five or six shells in my pocket and trotted back. There it still was, mad as all get out. The first shot pitifully tore out a divot in front of it but the second hit it right behind the head and all was over.

The “glory” part of the story over, the less pleasant task began. A stuck snake by the chicken house has to be moved. I was not about to leave it there for the chickens to fiddle with for three weeks. It was huge and, well, no way. I couldn't pull it forward because breakfast couldn't go through (and the head was still sort of striking) and when I pulled it backwards the scales got stuck. It was big, fat, and heavy and I really wasn't into it. I decided to let the geese out. For some reason they were plastered at the back of their apartment and refused to move. It couldn't have been because Mr. Rattler had lain outside their door for who knows how long or because a cannon had gone off just outside. Since Sissy was due I took a break and went the house to collect my sanity.

When she got here she had no problem doing the pulling and yanking while I poked at the scales with a stick. She got it back through and held it up. She put it into a five gallon flower pot and safely stowed it in the barn. We had urban visitors due and wanted them to see it. Later we took photographs and measured: four feet, three inches, 11 rattles not counting the button, big as I've ever seen here, black mask.

That night I put it over the wall and the next morning the snake was totally gone; somebody had feasted. I was nervous around the chicken house and more so because Bifry the hound dog went jumpy-jumpy all around where the snake had been, making me think there was another one. And there is another one because the big snake was not the one I saw in the barn a few weeks ago. And it was not the one busy in the road at twilight on its way into the barn a few days before that. Those were a tenth of its size but they too were rattlers. Bifry had barked to notify me about the first one, saving my hide because it had been too dark to see it in the road. They are out there and I'm rethinking the holstered pistol loaded with snake shot.

Bebe Fenstermaker

Castroville has always been a favorite town of mine. Needless to say, I was delighted to learn that a cousin and her husband had bought one of the early Alsatian homes there. It is tiny in comparison to today's “mansions.” The yard is substantial and the rest of the property is leased by a neighbor who stocks it with a few head of cattle. Another attraction of the town is the historic Landmark Inn, owned and run as a bed and breakfast by Texas Parks and Wildlife. It is located on the Medina River and offers several rooms for guests. Castroville is easy to get around in and is fun to tour.

One morning just recently the dogs tore out of the house. They ran up the fenceline stopping to stare at some activity on the other side. As I followed them, I saw a coyote in the tall grass and weeds. It ducked down and I noticed it had something whitish in its mouth. I opened the gate and was going through when I saw the coyote running into the cedars but with nothing in its mouth. I looked around to see just what it had caught and noticed a body on the ground. It turned out to be a large fawn, which I startled into staggering to its feet. It wobbled down the fenceline, never crashing into it, and moved on towards the creek with its mother. By that time, I saw the coyote emerge from the cedar break and start across the field, following the deer. When I moved to get a better look the coyote saw me and turned away, trotting off in another direction.

Our first cold front filtered down late last week. It was the first time this fall that I felt the need for some heat in the mornings and evenings. We have had a long and temperate fall, cool temperatures interspersed with warm ones. The schumard oaks in the yard were so confused that after dropping their leaves they began putting on new ones. Some of the fall colors are beginning to show on the hills.

The hunters have been out working on their stands and checking on the hog traps, moving a couple to different locations. They showed me pictures of a buck brought in from a hunting site nearby. The buck had 41 points. It wasn't a handsome set of antlers, rather a confusion of tines and points.

Sissy Fenstermaker