Foothill Summer

It's funny how the survival skills you learn growing up stay with you.  I haven't spent a July day at my parents' house in years, and yet, even with the TV on and the little fountain burbling away, I deciphered the particular "hhhhhhhhhhhsssssssss" that means one thing in the middle of a foothill summer:

*You might not be able to see it very well in the video, but what set the snake off was finding one of the dog's bouncy balls...he (or she) found it threatening, apparently.

The task fell unto my mom and me to take down the rattler.  (Or pay some local business $175 to come and shoot it.  Sometimes I think that MY jobs sucks.  Perspective is everything.)  I think this is the first time I've ever experienced Fear with a capitol F, though the word I used to describe it at the time also may have started with an F.  My mom kept her cool and called the shots, while I could barely look at the thing without literally shaking - though I didn't realize it until I was trying to keep the shovel in one place while my mom attempted to sever the head off.  (For those of you without redneck pasts, the venom is stored in a rattler's head.  And a rattler is a rattlesnake.)

Two shovels, a hammer, a hoe, two coffee cans - because the first wasn't big enough - a roll of duct tape and 45 minutes later, the poisonous bastard was secured.  And then I made mojitos.