[Follow these links to catch up with the #10 stupid thing, #9 stupid thing, #8 stupid thing, #7 stupid thing, #6 stupid thing, #5 stupid thing, and #4 stupid thing I survived growing up in Texas.] By this point, you know we’re getting stupider and stoopider each week. Not to disappoint, I’m bringing back everyone’s favorite reptile, the rattlesnake.
When I arrived in Idaho some two decades ago, locals warned me of all the rattlesnakes slithering around the backcountry. “You be careful hiking out there in them Owyhee Mountains,” I would be told. “It’s rattlesnake season out there.” It didn’t matter whether it was April or October or anywhere in between. You could bet your sweet bippy it was gonna be rattlesnake season out there. After all these years of hiking, fishing, and rockhounding all over the Owyhee Mountains (and many other places in southern Idaho), I can confirm that there are indeed rattlesnakes. I’ve seen/heard two. Both were in the same canyon, on the same hiking trail…in Oregon. (But it was really close to Idaho!)
All you Idahoans, don’t get your panties in a wad. I’m sure there are rattlesnakes. I’m sure they are gonna be out to get me now that I’ve taunted them. But I don’t think folk up here in the Northwest understand what “Watch out for rattlesnakes” means in Texas. When someone in Texas tells you to watch out for rattlesnakes, it means they have personal and recent experience with rattlesnakes in the specific spot being discussed. It means they stepped on one outside the back door five minutes ago.
During my four years working on the family ranch (from the age of thirteen to seventeen) I encountered rattlesnakes as they slithered out of pipes I was actively carrying, as they woke me from naps by licking the air next to my ear, as they interrupted my fishing, as they uncurled from the base of gateposts, as they rattled their warning in darkened feed and tack rooms…and as they rattled from deep inside hay bale mazes.
For those of you who have never played in hay barns, allow me to detail the game all us cousins found most entertaining. Creating 3D mazes in large stacks of hay bales requires a combination of creative stacking and selective removal of bales. The end result is the ability to squeeze through dark tunnels the width of a single hay bale that might go on for twenty yards with multiple bends before you poke your head out the other side of the stack.
To enhance the experience, the participants could split into two teams and utilize BB guns, pellet guns, or in later years, paintball. (The latter had the distinct disadvantage of revealing your transgression to the adults, and was thus dismissed after one ill-fated event.) I’m sure this all sounds like healthy, childlike behavior to you readers out there. Nothing stupid about crawling around under tons of hay bales and shooting at each other, right?
Oh, did I forget to mention all the rattlesnakes? I did, didn’t I? Yeah. There were lots of rattlesnakes. Hay bales mean mice and rats. Mice and rats mean snakes. Some of those snakes were bound to be rattlesnakes. I probably never even knew about the rat snakes and bull snakes. They don’t make any noise. But when you are ten yards from open air, surrounded by suffocating hay, and you hear that muffled rattle (you know it’s gotta be close, or you wouldn’t be able to hear it at all) that get’s your heart racing for sure. Don’t get me wrong, the hay fever has your heart racing already. But hearing that rattle pushes it to the next level. That’s when you’ve got to make a decision. You either gotta inch forward or inch backward based on where you think the sound is coming from. If any of us would have ever had the misfortune of stumbling upon a mother and her babies, I’m guessing it wouldn’t have mattered.
But hey, as far as I know, all the cousins made it out.
At the Desk This Week
I got more good stuff written this week. I’m cruising toward the completion of season 3 of the Green Ones. I think I have a few scenes left to finish out the final climactic showdown and then resolve a few things while also setting the stage for the next book/season. I like how it is coming together. I was convicted this week that I’ll need to go through the entire season (but mostly the last few episodes) specifically for the purpose of dialing up the inter-character conflict. They’ve pretty much been agreeing with each other and going along with the plan…which is totally not realistic at all. Plus, it’s boring. Now that I’m confident in the plot stuff all coming together, I can go back and ramp up the characterization. That will be next!
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
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