You know it is hard to get anything done in your shop with visitors. Phoenix gets plenty of ‘snowbirds’, ‘winter visitors’ what have you. This is one that I really not want to stay, but despite all my verbal encouragement (abuse) he would not leave.
Edited 1/22/2009 4:08 pm by AZMO
Replies
azmo,
what a beautiful rattler! i hope it saw it's way back to safety. i spend as much time, during the summer, as i can, camping in the remote southern arizona desert. i love the diversity of arizona rattlesnakes.
count your natural blessings.
eef
eef,I bow to your attitude. May you remain safe during your expeditions.
I share your view but in the same breath could do with out the experience of waking up with one in my sleeping bag.roc
Another little know fact about rattlers and snakes,
80 % of the time a woman gets hit by a rattler it is on the lower torso, ankles, legs etc
70 % of the time a man gets hit by a rattler it is on the upper torso, hands, arms, shoulders....
Some kind of an IQ test I gather.
AZMO <!----><!----><!---->
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Reminds me of when we first moved to AZ - to Tucson. Back in MI we had a big black spider toy for the cat. While unpacking boxes in the garage in AZ my wife leaned down to pick up the spider cat toy. Unfortunately, it was a real tarantula. She screamed so loud I thought the neighbors would call the police to report a murder in progress.
They are amazing creatures aren't they. I enjoy them when I am expecting them, but when they just appear it's a pretty good heart test!
AZMO <!----><!----><!---->
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AZMO ,
Whoa Dude ! Now I have never had one of those in my shop , I did have a Peacock in there for a short time once .
Interesting enough Peacocks are tolerated in India because they are death on poisonous snakes , but imho quite the varmint when roaming on your property and your roof and visiting your shop .
people ask what the hole in the floor is from all the time.
dusty
I never had a rattler or a peacock...but I did have a lady in a housecoat and slippers walk through the shop one day. She said she was just passing through and I said that was just fine.
(she got lost in the building which has a small apartment on the 3rd floor)
I hope you were not using a machine at the time .
Did she have curlers and bobby pins in her hair and one of those dew rags on her head ?
Now that sounds scary
Hey AMZO! This is awesome. Can we post your photo in our blogs tomorrow? If you don't mind, write up a caption with the who, what, where, and I'll put it up. I think our newsletter audience would get a kick out of it and it could spark a fun string of comments on the question: "What's the strangest thing you've found in your shop."
- Matt
mberger@taunton.com
OK the whole story....
I was cleaning out a drawer, getting ready to remodel my master bedroom, and finally found this photo. I live on the Phoenix Mt. Preserve, hundreds of acres of desert just past my backyard pool, and we get a wide variety of wild life.
Like Harrison Ford said. "Snakes, it just had to be snakes" in his Indiana Jones movie. I don't like em at all either. I have lived around them forever and you leave them alone, they leave you alone. Works fine for me.
This photo is a few years back, and was in the late spring. You won't find a nice rattler out in January they are in hibernation. The Mountains that I live next too are very dark brown and black color, so this Western Diamondback, has adapted a color scheme to blend in. I have run across a few hiking and believe me if they don't make noise, they blend right in. This is not a young rattler actually, they just don't get as big right here for some reason, maybe the pickins are slim.
He managed to crawl down the wash and up my driveway and somehow got into my garage/shop. First reaction is fear and kill, one second later, it was how to get him out without that. No need to kill them, they do a great job of keeping vermin at bay as well. We need them in the hood, like it or not, he was here long before I was. Still he just wasn't going to work out like a"bench dog" . So how to remove a rattler. Long stick? Shovel? Nope best thing is a hose. I brought mine around and got behind him, and blasted away. Pretty hard for them to strike with a blast of water in the face. The goal is to float them on the concrete and wash them out the door, then down the driveway and back to where they belong. That keeps them 10 to 15 feet away which is much better than a stick!
Amazingly he tolerated the abuse, and left with a few indignant feelings, and moi with a story to tell.
Side note: Yep that is my tandem hangin there in the photo. I ride the Mountain bike a bunch around the desert. You never want to be the second rider. The first rider wakes em up good, the second one gets hit. We figur dem rattlers stake da trails out jus waitin for Mountin Bikers to come by. Emmmm GOOD, Mt bikers taste jus like chicken....
Later Morgan
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Edited 1/22/2009 9:17 pm by AZMO
azmo,
that is not a diamondback-anything. that's a tiger rattlesnake. fond of rocky bajadas. get yourself a snake grabber, you know the thing that looks like what grocers take stuff down with...
that and a plastic trash can with a lid. pick the snake up with the tongs, drop it into the can and drive it up to those beautiful mountains you're so blessed to live near, and turn it LOOSE!
where i live, each spring i find one or two huge gopher snakes in my yard. i pick em up, pop em into a pillow case and take em up to the national forest to release them. i always have a good warm feeling afterwards.
your fellow desert lover,
eef
Eef, from your first post I had hoped you would know more about them than others. It was a City Park Ranger who told me what it was. The less I see of them the better I am. A Tiger Rattlesnake, very descriptive name for him. Thanks. As for driving him anywhere, it is only 100 yards from my garage to the start of the mountain where he came from, so it was just a nudge in the right direction.
From what I have been told, rattlesnakes don't do well with moving them to a new territory. Radio recievers show that they don't live past the first year. Happens here where new homes go up in the winter and the snake comes out in spring. They relocate them, but it is a shame. Maybe that is bunk, if you have ideas I would love to here it.
Morgan,
The desert here is really greening up, going to be a spectacular flower show this year! <!----><!----><!---->
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Hey Morgan,
I'll trade wiv ye.
View Image
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
azmo,
didn't mean to come off so intense about saving the snake. it's just that there is so little of wild america left and it's shrinking all the time. maybe we could all agree on that. i did not know about that relocation problem, i want to look into that.
so things are greening up? can't wait to get out there! spring is happening out my way also. sure could use more rain.
take care,
eef
No you were not intense at all, in fact I concur completely. The desert is an amazing special place to live, with tentative holds on life. I work with salvage trees, cactus, and plants on my projects every day. I have learned to landscape homes so that we have minimal impact on the Native species. In order to do that you must pay attention to the details. I find the Darwinian evolution of species to be facsinating. Always something new to observe and learn from.
What desert areas do you visit? Any special places? I can steer you to several that are close by Phoenix, I was a scout leader and did lots of camping around. Drop me an email if you like.
Morgan <!----><!----><!---->
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hey-dee azmo,
on a typical summer jaunt, i'll light out of here round about july 6th and head to my beloved anza borrego desert state park. it's a huge spit of desert in south calif that is the western side of your sonoran desert. i hang out there a few days and then head south and east towards gila bend. south from there to ajo, then why, and on into organ pipe cactus national bio-sphere. in the summer i have the whole place to myself, excepting of course the border patrol dudes. from there i mosey (sp?) down across the tohono-oodoham rez and on into the buenos aires wild life refuge. from there it's towards nogales and on into the gila monster territory of the santa ritas. i do the return trip slowly, retracing my steps. arizona is beyond beautiful.eef
Morgan,Have you seen these?
http://www.arizonasilhouette.com/Rattlesnake_blanks_Baron_web.jpgGood to hear from you. I trust your work has been keeping you busy. How's the sheen on that bubinga table holding up? Have you signed it on our behalf?
Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
That picture made me want to go spend some quality time cleaning my guns.
They look to much like a snake for me... how about leapord wood instead!
Annie is fine and the table has a nice cover on it. It looks like new. No signatures, no time, no real need to do so.
Doing well, working my butt off running the guys, doing some reorginzation right now, have had some guys quit and go back home, and I am not replacing them. So it is bit more hectic than usual.
M <!----><!----><!---->
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Here's my post:
http://finewoodworking.taunton.com/item/5434/rattlesnakes-and-other-unwanted-shop-visitors
Very nice story Matt, so you worked with a Junkyard Dog and not a Bench dog. Eef tells me the rattler is a Tiger Rattler, I will leave that to his expertise!
Morgan <!----><!----><!---->
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Matt by all means, see my followup for details. Morgan <!----><!----><!---->
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AZMO,
Nice mascot !
You know. This skinny guy/gal could be your answer to just about any other unwanted shop visitor that you would like to give a quick send off.
What is this ? I see evidence of a bicycle tourist in residence.
roc
That's the ones you have to watch. The small ones will kill you much quicker than the adult rattlers. Adult rattlers have a mechanism built in which only allows a small amount of venom to pass into the victim at the bite. Smaller rattlers like the one pictured will empty the whole sac into you at once because they have not learned to control the venom.
Note: a flat shovel in the shop is your friend. I have had my share of water mocassins in the shop here ( I have a large pond a short distance from the shop).
That rattler would have made one heck of a small hatband!
Lee
Lost my new bride in Texas Fort Hood area.. A big old Diamond back rattler in the house. She was upset already because her two/three? kittens were missing.
I removed the snake without killing it. Somehow I got it without being bitten.. It was a BIG snake. Maybe 4 foot long and looked about two inches thick. My wife went back to Chicago (taking the car she bought me) that very week! I was 'informed that I WOULD make sure no snake was in the car!
City girl but a lovely person that loved any animal as long as it had four legs... I think spiders got her more upset than that snake.
If the next piece of furniture that AZMO builds has snakeskin handles on the drawers we will know how that came about.
Jerry
Azmo,
You had a nasty little problem there. I've encountered my share of porcupines, shrews, mice, and the world's finest cat in my shop. However, one of the really great things about life in Alaska is NO SNAKES. I suppose I might someday find a bear in the shop -- they pass through the yard regularly -- but I'll take him over a rattler any day.
Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!
I'll bet lots of woodworkers here have a Grizzly in their shops.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I'll bet lots of woodworkers here have a Grizzly in their shops.
And I'll bet that the big 3 auto manufacturers have Jets in their shops ;-)
Lee
Ya, sure, you bet. But my neighborhood bears are mostly black bears and they're harder to train. Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
You have trained sanding bears! Sly folks you northerners are.
Morgan <!----><!----><!---->
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Dangerous looking visitor! My son left my shop overhead door open one day about 3 years ago. When I drove up, I saw the door open, and went to investigate. I walked in, and there was a redtail hawk perched on top of my planer, eating a rodent (mouse or chipmunk, I couldn't tell which). By the time I retrieved my camera, though, he had flown out the door. Very neat eater, too. He left only the fur behind.
Jeff
No diamonbacks or tiger rattlers here on OKC, but scorpions and once a big, and I must say, VERY aggressive bull snake was in the shop that scared the beejezzus out of my wife.
Trying to be the good guy and put him back in the pasture from whence he came, I was struck at several times before I managed to get him on a rake and then he started up the rake handle after me which kind of pissed me off. Since by this time we were both pissed off, it became a fight or flight situation. I opted for flight while he opted for fight. My good friend the hoe (garden, that is) finally stepped in and broke up the fight, taking both of the bull snakes out to the pasture. Geeze, what a battle that lasted all of about 45 seconds. Again, anything but snakes.
I had a green snake in my house another time (OK I should close the doors), not sure what he was but fassst was not even close to the idea. He shot across the floor, my wife screaming and running out of the room even faster. He flew under my stove, and was trying to hide. He climbed up the back of the stove wedging himself between it and the wall. I grabbed the stove by door and pulled hard to get the stove out. The door flys off and into my arms. Dump the door on the ground and pull the rest of it away from the wall. The rat $astard had squeezed partway into a gap between the cabinet and the wall, the tail was flopping around like crazy and I had no choice but to grap ahold. The worst feeling in the world for me, the snake agreed and wriggled out while I was still holding him by the tail. A quick fling and he was across the floor and headed out the door.
Dang oven hasn't been the same since..... <!----><!----><!---->
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If you treat him well, e.g. a mouse/week perhaps, he might come to like you, and volunteer to keep other unwanted visitors at bay. ;-)
Ralph , I thought you were gonna say if you treated him nice he would help you sand or something .
d
Reminds me of this.
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Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
I had not heard that in decades....
We have a showing of Hair here right now. That was a fun trip (pun intended) down memory lane as well. Great voices and a phenomanal performance. <!----><!----><!---->
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