If you are deposited in the Harpeth River often enough, with the tents and food waiting a day’s travel down stream, you learn how to steer a canoe.
If you fish from the bank long enough, with the fish apparently elsewhere, you get a canoe.
If you’re constantly blown around by the wind, while trying to cast from your canoe, you get an electric trolling motor.
If you keep seeing those guys fishing in the middle of the lake and wonder what they know that you don’t, you get sonar.
The Rita II, named after the vessel in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, had the aspirations of a WW II destroyer, some of the equipment and a Captain of occasionally questionable command decisions.
In hindsight the first motorized cruise tempted Providence. Yours truly (180lb), Mike (180lb), Murray (230lb), Lauren, (60lb) and about 60lbs of battery + motor, conducted sea trials on the Cahaba River above the Hwy 280 bridge one Spring afternoon. Excitement muted concern for the water line being only 3in below the gunwales. We did not capsize and Murray caught one bream. Upon return to shore all were unloaded, save the Captain, so as to ‘see what she’ll do’ speed wise with minimum load. This put 240lbs in the stern and the bow in the air. Going straight was not a problem but quick turns were. Another useful insight was that the prop needed to be just below the surface so as to avoid an additional source of unpleasant rolling.
An early modification utilized jumper cables allowing the battery to be placed in the bow which made one man travel pretty level.
As time went by various numbers of the Shavings served as bow ballast but mission creep has kept voyages exciting. Our current state-o-play has made it possible to fish for striper in the summer over an underwater spring. This however requires, in addition to the usual ordinance, a big bait tub, aerator and Shaving 4 throwing the cast net for shad while standing in the bow.
Future development of the Rita II will involve a 2hp gas motor and possibly an outrigger so as to more boldly go off the beach or into the tail race of some nearby dams. I know what you’re thinking; “Fair well and ado to you fair Spanish ladies….”
There is one voyage that has not been made but should have been the first given the canoe’s namesake; a passage that begins as a christening in the storied waters of the Black Lagoon. The fence is not high and when the gate is not open the sign simply says “beach closed”. A determined crew, just before dawn’s bend and the squadrons of black vulture landings begin, could easily hoist the Rita II over the fence. Then with out arguably “opening” the beach, they could hit the water, paddle past the pier, take a right and be on their way in the dawn’s early light amongst the many creatures which still remain. Just a thought.
ML
6/6/07
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
11. What in Heaven's name brought you to Carrabelle?
College is the first opportunity to chose where you live and it was not a close call – Florida. We had vacationed there for years plus the tales of natural adventures filled the books I had read. I simply wanted to cease being a tourist; I wanted to live there.
So I went to The Florida State University in Tallahassee. The cities’ Seminole meaning was an abandoned site whose resources had been exhausted. This translation amused many as “there’s nothing to do here” was a frequent complaint. Those people simply ignored the venue’s many opportunities.
Adventure destinations were always dictated by transportation; no car, one walk’s. So off to the nearest State Park I headed one Saturday morning in September. Despite several trips to Killearn Gardens I rarely had to walk the whole distance as a citizen usually stopped and offered a ride. My first expedition in the land of coral snakes, cottonmouths and the eastern diamondback rattlesnake produced a two foot eastern king snake which I knew only from books; fair enough!
As time went by the snake hunters found one another and somebody had a car. The Tram Road circuit was a biggie first shown to me by Joe from New Jersey and another guy whose sole goal was a diamondback over six feet (I heard later he found that which he had long sought). Starting at a point just off the truck route, the road could be taken to Wacissa and from there to deeper forest roads. Because much of the circuit was sandy roads it was often possible to gauge snake activity by the number of trails in the sand. Furthermore a trail with no tire track, encountered after a car passed, allowed some precision on when the snake had been there. Plus you could tell which way the snake had gone and usually some useful idea of species. More than one snake must have crossed the road and thought, “made it”, only to find himself suddenly in a pillow case.
Because much of the Tram Road circuit was unpaved it was pretty much a before dark trek; long on eastern king snakes, rat snakes, rattlesnakes. Because it was paved County 67, running south from Telogia, was the night time place. Good, lightly traveled, paved roads and an abundance of scarlet snakes and scarlet king snakes were its glory. Besides these two premiere species there was plenty else as 67 ran from hardwood forest down to the Gulf coast. Carrabelle was the turn around point where we’d get some little pecan pies and Dr Peppers and relax in an oyster shell parking lot before the trip back up 67. Those were the days (nights actually).
We all had this vague foreboding these places would be erased by civilization after we left but return visits suggest not. On one family vacation which, as luck would have it, me, Mrs. SS, and a pile of the shavings were dining on gas station food (the really fast food) in an oyster shell parking lot. We got back in the car, I started whistling the theme song from Indiana Jones, and they started screaming “NO DADDY, DON’T”. They generally enjoyed these little side trips once events unfolded but maintained that initially screaming put them in better voice for those times that screaming was called for. On this occasion a short drive up County 67 turned up a grey rat snake on its morning outing.
So I came to Carrabelle for my interest; I came for the snakes. And I was not misinformed.
Recently Shaving 3 loaned me a copy of In Search of Nature by E.O. Wilson. Chapter one is “The Serpent” where in is said “ I can testify from personal experience that on any given day you are ten times more likely to meet a snake in Florida than in Brazil or New Guinea.” I knew there were more snakes in Florida than in Tennessee and I also knew of no where there were more. Turns out, if snakes are what you seek, it’s the best place on Earth.
ML
6/4/07
So I went to The Florida State University in Tallahassee. The cities’ Seminole meaning was an abandoned site whose resources had been exhausted. This translation amused many as “there’s nothing to do here” was a frequent complaint. Those people simply ignored the venue’s many opportunities.
Adventure destinations were always dictated by transportation; no car, one walk’s. So off to the nearest State Park I headed one Saturday morning in September. Despite several trips to Killearn Gardens I rarely had to walk the whole distance as a citizen usually stopped and offered a ride. My first expedition in the land of coral snakes, cottonmouths and the eastern diamondback rattlesnake produced a two foot eastern king snake which I knew only from books; fair enough!
As time went by the snake hunters found one another and somebody had a car. The Tram Road circuit was a biggie first shown to me by Joe from New Jersey and another guy whose sole goal was a diamondback over six feet (I heard later he found that which he had long sought). Starting at a point just off the truck route, the road could be taken to Wacissa and from there to deeper forest roads. Because much of the circuit was sandy roads it was often possible to gauge snake activity by the number of trails in the sand. Furthermore a trail with no tire track, encountered after a car passed, allowed some precision on when the snake had been there. Plus you could tell which way the snake had gone and usually some useful idea of species. More than one snake must have crossed the road and thought, “made it”, only to find himself suddenly in a pillow case.
Because much of the Tram Road circuit was unpaved it was pretty much a before dark trek; long on eastern king snakes, rat snakes, rattlesnakes. Because it was paved County 67, running south from Telogia, was the night time place. Good, lightly traveled, paved roads and an abundance of scarlet snakes and scarlet king snakes were its glory. Besides these two premiere species there was plenty else as 67 ran from hardwood forest down to the Gulf coast. Carrabelle was the turn around point where we’d get some little pecan pies and Dr Peppers and relax in an oyster shell parking lot before the trip back up 67. Those were the days (nights actually).
We all had this vague foreboding these places would be erased by civilization after we left but return visits suggest not. On one family vacation which, as luck would have it, me, Mrs. SS, and a pile of the shavings were dining on gas station food (the really fast food) in an oyster shell parking lot. We got back in the car, I started whistling the theme song from Indiana Jones, and they started screaming “NO DADDY, DON’T”. They generally enjoyed these little side trips once events unfolded but maintained that initially screaming put them in better voice for those times that screaming was called for. On this occasion a short drive up County 67 turned up a grey rat snake on its morning outing.
So I came to Carrabelle for my interest; I came for the snakes. And I was not misinformed.
Recently Shaving 3 loaned me a copy of In Search of Nature by E.O. Wilson. Chapter one is “The Serpent” where in is said “ I can testify from personal experience that on any given day you are ten times more likely to meet a snake in Florida than in Brazil or New Guinea.” I knew there were more snakes in Florida than in Tennessee and I also knew of no where there were more. Turns out, if snakes are what you seek, it’s the best place on Earth.
ML
6/4/07
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
10. Summer of the copperheads
It takes surprisingly little to become an expert on snakes. Library card captures of Ditmars, Oliver, Pope, Schmidt & Inger and Conant, plus plenty of field trips, and a kid can know more about snakes than 99.999% of the grownups. The only reason this knowledge carries special tribal prestige is that people are afraid of snakes. And the person, regardless of age, who moves forward while others scream and flee is possessor of an ancient power.
It is a power because, despite the commonly encountered ‘snakes are your friends because they eat grain gobbling rodents’, the more important truth is that snakes kill more people every year than all other non-human vertebrates combined. Furthermore, while only around one in twenty venomous snake bites kills a person, the other 19 are frequently left in wreathing pain for days and then the bitten appendage may rot off. And this sequela does not go unnoticed by the principle’s family and neighbors. Snakes are, as a snake once put it, “more powerful than the finger of a king”. Fire power, plus they are basically small and therefore way too close when first spotted, accounts for their fearsome status. Hence, the leap from a kid who plays with snakes to full blown witch doctor status is power over the poisonous.
Mike helped me build a cinderblock snake pit in the basement despite my mother’s position of “we’ll see” during the constructions phase. In the event she let me buy a cottonmouth from Ray Singleton and we put him in the pit. Not long after the snake’s arrival Dave came by with his father’s excellent camera and close-up lens. To take real advantage of the close-up lens full powers somebody had to do something they had never done before. Therefore I have a close-up picture of the first venomous snake I ever touched. Dave claimed that there was a ring of my sweat around the snake’s neck when I tossed him down. This photo shoot did not really count as the moment of full powers over the serpent. What was required was to go mano-o-snakeo, on his home turf, i.e. catch one.
So as a young nature counselor I was full of long pent-up desire to catch a poisonous snake and when the time came it came in spades. It all started one night when another counselor got clipped on the calf by what had to have been a poisonous snake. Nobody saw the snake but he spent some time in the hospital. Only a few nights later we were sitting in the head office monitoring the ebb and flow of a capture-the-flag battle down in junior camp. In runs a kid “Mr. L, there’s a snake”. Nothing new here until I get to the excitement where Flynn (maybe nine) has one tennis shoed foot gently on top of the front half of a 2 foot copperhead. And he was surrounded by about 50 kids with 50 flash lights (Nice stage lighting; the sawed-off appreciate an audience). Snake stick retrieved from the Nature Hut I put one hand under Flynn’s arm pit, to give him a little extra lift, and told him to jump.
Now my plan was to pin the copperhead’s head, as these things were supposed to be done, pick him up behind his head, and take him to the Nature Hut. As it turned out the snake had other plans and took off like a bat-out-of-hell when Flynn jumped off him. Fortunately the stage lighting crew scattered. Some chase eventually resulted in the planned out come. The Head Counselor said “well done”. Nobody bitten, snake on display, and I just made the leap.
As events unfolded it was less of a leap and more of an ongoing sprint around Camp putting the cuffs, so to speak, on pit vipers. A few nights after the first copperhead, just after lights out, a camper + counselor came to say there was a snake in the bathroom –copperhead two. Within days at an evening Jr/Sr. camp cook out in Sr camp….”Mr L there’s a snake under the cloths line”. That would be number three. Within days, a group hike from Camp turned up a big number four.
The Head Counselor, a very level headed leader, was starting to get worried. Not only had a counselor been bitten and both Jr and Sr. camp suddenly infested with copperheads, the capture on the hike made it look like we were also surrounded. A call to Tennessee Fish and Game indicated that the entire state was not being overrun with copperheads. I did my best to share in Camp’s official concern but in truth I was having a really good summer.
ML
5/28/07
It is a power because, despite the commonly encountered ‘snakes are your friends because they eat grain gobbling rodents’, the more important truth is that snakes kill more people every year than all other non-human vertebrates combined. Furthermore, while only around one in twenty venomous snake bites kills a person, the other 19 are frequently left in wreathing pain for days and then the bitten appendage may rot off. And this sequela does not go unnoticed by the principle’s family and neighbors. Snakes are, as a snake once put it, “more powerful than the finger of a king”. Fire power, plus they are basically small and therefore way too close when first spotted, accounts for their fearsome status. Hence, the leap from a kid who plays with snakes to full blown witch doctor status is power over the poisonous.
Mike helped me build a cinderblock snake pit in the basement despite my mother’s position of “we’ll see” during the constructions phase. In the event she let me buy a cottonmouth from Ray Singleton and we put him in the pit. Not long after the snake’s arrival Dave came by with his father’s excellent camera and close-up lens. To take real advantage of the close-up lens full powers somebody had to do something they had never done before. Therefore I have a close-up picture of the first venomous snake I ever touched. Dave claimed that there was a ring of my sweat around the snake’s neck when I tossed him down. This photo shoot did not really count as the moment of full powers over the serpent. What was required was to go mano-o-snakeo, on his home turf, i.e. catch one.
So as a young nature counselor I was full of long pent-up desire to catch a poisonous snake and when the time came it came in spades. It all started one night when another counselor got clipped on the calf by what had to have been a poisonous snake. Nobody saw the snake but he spent some time in the hospital. Only a few nights later we were sitting in the head office monitoring the ebb and flow of a capture-the-flag battle down in junior camp. In runs a kid “Mr. L, there’s a snake”. Nothing new here until I get to the excitement where Flynn (maybe nine) has one tennis shoed foot gently on top of the front half of a 2 foot copperhead. And he was surrounded by about 50 kids with 50 flash lights (Nice stage lighting; the sawed-off appreciate an audience). Snake stick retrieved from the Nature Hut I put one hand under Flynn’s arm pit, to give him a little extra lift, and told him to jump.
Now my plan was to pin the copperhead’s head, as these things were supposed to be done, pick him up behind his head, and take him to the Nature Hut. As it turned out the snake had other plans and took off like a bat-out-of-hell when Flynn jumped off him. Fortunately the stage lighting crew scattered. Some chase eventually resulted in the planned out come. The Head Counselor said “well done”. Nobody bitten, snake on display, and I just made the leap.
As events unfolded it was less of a leap and more of an ongoing sprint around Camp putting the cuffs, so to speak, on pit vipers. A few nights after the first copperhead, just after lights out, a camper + counselor came to say there was a snake in the bathroom –copperhead two. Within days at an evening Jr/Sr. camp cook out in Sr camp….”Mr L there’s a snake under the cloths line”. That would be number three. Within days, a group hike from Camp turned up a big number four.
The Head Counselor, a very level headed leader, was starting to get worried. Not only had a counselor been bitten and both Jr and Sr. camp suddenly infested with copperheads, the capture on the hike made it look like we were also surrounded. A call to Tennessee Fish and Game indicated that the entire state was not being overrun with copperheads. I did my best to share in Camp’s official concern but in truth I was having a really good summer.
ML
5/28/07
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
9. Mary Jane, why do you let him keep all those snakes?
You can keep snakes and only interact with the other woodland creatures. The garter snakes eat their worms, the water snakes eat their fish, the hog nosed snakes eat their toads, the king snakes eat their water snakes and the black snakes eat their lizards. But if you want to keep snakes and make the leap from impulse power to warp drive you need a lot of one thing and one thing only – mice.
In the fifth grade we moved back to Oak Ridge, Tennessee and my mother went to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory….. Biology Division. Being a big Biology Division the investigators needed a lot of mice, many of which were raised in the “mouse house”. Mice being mice, they made more mice so that the mouse house always had too many – mice.
Biologists being biologists, they were more than happy to support the scientific leanings of the young. Consequently, all I ever needed to do was tell my mother “I need some mice” and home came a box of pinkies, fuzzes, hoppers, regulars and jumbos. So by the summer of the sixth grade the only limit on the number of quality snakes I could keep was the available space for cages in my bedroom! And it was a fair sized bedroom.
I remember that the richest I ever felt in my youth was late high school when I managed to have in my possession five corn snakes; (plus, of course, a lot of other stuff).
The ironic thing about this mouse-sink, palace-o-snakes arrangement was my mother didn’t mind the snakes but she didn’t like mice. Now that I think back on it maybe that was part of the point; fewer mice in the world.
It probably comes as no surprise that my mother’s friends questioned her sanity. She had a standard reply which I have always since shared with mothers and kids edging toward snakes in the house. My mother would just tell her friends…”Well at least he’s not out stealing hub caps”.
ML
5/25/07
In the fifth grade we moved back to Oak Ridge, Tennessee and my mother went to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory….. Biology Division. Being a big Biology Division the investigators needed a lot of mice, many of which were raised in the “mouse house”. Mice being mice, they made more mice so that the mouse house always had too many – mice.
Biologists being biologists, they were more than happy to support the scientific leanings of the young. Consequently, all I ever needed to do was tell my mother “I need some mice” and home came a box of pinkies, fuzzes, hoppers, regulars and jumbos. So by the summer of the sixth grade the only limit on the number of quality snakes I could keep was the available space for cages in my bedroom! And it was a fair sized bedroom.
I remember that the richest I ever felt in my youth was late high school when I managed to have in my possession five corn snakes; (plus, of course, a lot of other stuff).
The ironic thing about this mouse-sink, palace-o-snakes arrangement was my mother didn’t mind the snakes but she didn’t like mice. Now that I think back on it maybe that was part of the point; fewer mice in the world.
It probably comes as no surprise that my mother’s friends questioned her sanity. She had a standard reply which I have always since shared with mothers and kids edging toward snakes in the house. My mother would just tell her friends…”Well at least he’s not out stealing hub caps”.
ML
5/25/07
Monday, May 21, 2007
8b. At least somebody was prepared
I knew Riley around 45 years ago at summer Camp but remember that he was from New Madrid, Missouri. I remember because he was, even at about 12, so accustomed to people saying “where”? that he would quickly add – “largest city on the Mississippi River….before the earth quake”. A subsequent earth science course confirmed the magnitude of the upheaval which reportedly rang church bells in Boston. So quick was he, at so young an age, with New Madrid highlights that I figured he was sure to end up mayor or at least head of the Chamber of Commerce.
Riley’s other memorable feature was generally being armed to the teeth. Back in those days you could get actual Army surplus from the Army Surplus store; bayonets, machetes, all manner of smaller cutlery. Riley was sawed-off early and if he had actually carried a saw no one would have noticed. I do not remember if he marched around Camp so equipped but if he did it didn’t matter; that’s what summer camp is for. I do know he was always fully armed when ever we went into the field.
One such trip took us to a Tennessee state park for an overnight camp out. Being the nature counselor, after camp site set up, I formed an expedition of the willing and off we went to see what was happening along on the lake’s shore.
Not much was happening until we came upon a fair sized hole in the bank at water level with a fresh mud cloud coming out of it. I alerted the group, opined that it was likely muskrat or snapping turtle activity, and was about to move on because sticking one’s hand in fair sized fresh holes is way too sawed-off. Then Riley must have moved because the sound of clanging metal reminded me we were better prepared to deal with this opportunity than was typically the case. I says, “Riley, let me see your bayonet”. I recall him pleased to share because I suspect he was probably operating under some sort of official “use it and lose it” personal weaponry injunction.
So we start sounding the hole, from the lake end, with the bayonet. It goes easily in as we follow the hole progressing landward. We followed the easy dirt toward the base of a big tree and then we got a “thud” sound from a half depth plunge and the bayonet starts shaking back and forth as if someone were on the other end. I says, “Riley let me see your hatchet”. And down, and around, we dug to a very big, very surprised, snapper. So big in fact that he was too heavy to carry safely by his tail far enough away from my leg. As we wanted more than a “you should have been there” tale back at the camp site a new transport method had to be invented. A kid on each leg was not going to last long and dragging him seemed a little harsh. So (and I still have trouble believing this but it’s what I remember) I hoisted him, his top shell to my skull top, his head to my back, and off to our encampment the proud hunting party marched.
The turtle weighed in at a bit over twenty pounds. Somebody came up with a bath tub for outside the Nature Hut and there the prize resided till Camp’s summer end. I dropped him off in a nearby river and that was that.
I fudged slightly on this story and tracked Riley down with Google. He was still in New Madrid and went way past the Chamber of Commerce from the stand point of the Missouri historical establishment. What I didn’t do was ask him what he had in his pockets. However I predict with high certainty, Riley is rarely without the biggest Swiss Army knife ever made and a leatherman tool (ah technology!) very close at hand. The fundamental things really do apply as time goes by.
ML
5/18/07
Riley’s other memorable feature was generally being armed to the teeth. Back in those days you could get actual Army surplus from the Army Surplus store; bayonets, machetes, all manner of smaller cutlery. Riley was sawed-off early and if he had actually carried a saw no one would have noticed. I do not remember if he marched around Camp so equipped but if he did it didn’t matter; that’s what summer camp is for. I do know he was always fully armed when ever we went into the field.
One such trip took us to a Tennessee state park for an overnight camp out. Being the nature counselor, after camp site set up, I formed an expedition of the willing and off we went to see what was happening along on the lake’s shore.
Not much was happening until we came upon a fair sized hole in the bank at water level with a fresh mud cloud coming out of it. I alerted the group, opined that it was likely muskrat or snapping turtle activity, and was about to move on because sticking one’s hand in fair sized fresh holes is way too sawed-off. Then Riley must have moved because the sound of clanging metal reminded me we were better prepared to deal with this opportunity than was typically the case. I says, “Riley, let me see your bayonet”. I recall him pleased to share because I suspect he was probably operating under some sort of official “use it and lose it” personal weaponry injunction.
So we start sounding the hole, from the lake end, with the bayonet. It goes easily in as we follow the hole progressing landward. We followed the easy dirt toward the base of a big tree and then we got a “thud” sound from a half depth plunge and the bayonet starts shaking back and forth as if someone were on the other end. I says, “Riley let me see your hatchet”. And down, and around, we dug to a very big, very surprised, snapper. So big in fact that he was too heavy to carry safely by his tail far enough away from my leg. As we wanted more than a “you should have been there” tale back at the camp site a new transport method had to be invented. A kid on each leg was not going to last long and dragging him seemed a little harsh. So (and I still have trouble believing this but it’s what I remember) I hoisted him, his top shell to my skull top, his head to my back, and off to our encampment the proud hunting party marched.
The turtle weighed in at a bit over twenty pounds. Somebody came up with a bath tub for outside the Nature Hut and there the prize resided till Camp’s summer end. I dropped him off in a nearby river and that was that.
I fudged slightly on this story and tracked Riley down with Google. He was still in New Madrid and went way past the Chamber of Commerce from the stand point of the Missouri historical establishment. What I didn’t do was ask him what he had in his pockets. However I predict with high certainty, Riley is rarely without the biggest Swiss Army knife ever made and a leatherman tool (ah technology!) very close at hand. The fundamental things really do apply as time goes by.
ML
5/18/07
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
8a. Bad protoplasm
So we’re sitting in the group room of a local bar after a neuroanatomy class and the topic of general disposition was introduced. In particular, what was the reason for the marked difference in demeanors between woolly monkeys and rhesus monkeys? I probably brought it up having just met a pet wooly monkey (“Monty” as I recall) who mingled well with a bunch of humans sitting around a living room. Monty’s passably civilized behavior was in stark contrast to what we all agreed would be the uncivilized to homicidal behavior of any rhesus monkey we had ever met.
The teacher, a Tallahassee neurologist, had joined us this evening and he forwarded the proposition that there was such a thing as “bad protoplasm”. Rhesus monkeys had it and wooly monkeys didn’t. His classification rang true as it was easy to think of animals whose mobility, agility and hostility far exceeded their station in life; those spiritually akin to the creature in the Alien series.
Based upon many encounters and several reasons my vote for baddest protoplasm goes to the common snapping turtle Chelydra serpentine. To begin with turtles as a group are not a first order menace. Oh a slider/cooter will take a swing at you every so often and a box turtle can probably pinch a finger in its closing shell but on the whole turtles are not exactly junk yard dogs. The common snapping turtle, however, is a junk yard dog. The species name says a lot about a striking speed that clearly impressed a visiting Swedish naturalist 250 years ago. And with a top wild weight of 75 pounds and an average of 10-35 pounds they are not to be tooted with.
My first tooting with came at about 10 when a pick-up safari was exploring a willow tree lined muddy creek behind our apartment. There was a piece of plywood, half in and out of the water, that one of the leader kids turned over. And under it was a 4 pound snapper also half in and out of the water. With slow menace he backed into the creek and was gone. I did not know such creatures existed and 50 yards from where I slept!
First capture was about a year later in the same creek. The fact that we had just returned from a Florida vacation must have accounted for the fact that I thought I was charging a big crab floating next to the far bank (pointy posterior shells as the similarity I guess). I picked up the one pound snapper and headed home where he likely stayed in an aquarium until he stunk us out –they have a distinctive unpleasant aroma.
The little ones, babies to about one pound, are fairly restrained; the attitude seems to set in at about three pounds but I don’t actually remember my first capture of the standard model. Fortunately snappers come with handles so if you get behind them you can pick them up by their long tails. This begs the question of “Why?” They bite, they’re big and they smell bad. This may explain the absent engram of first capture of a grown one as the typical conversation runs “I don’t want this thing; you want this thing?”
As driving teenagers we came across snappers in numbers from time to time. One day at Cove Lake, Dave and I were exploring a large area of foot deep water with a mud bottom. Snappers leave a characteristic trail in mud consisting of a two column path of foot prints with a continuous line up the middle where they drag their tail. We spotted the first trail and mud buried traveler quickly, then another and another. We ended up just counting them because if nobody wants one, fifty of the suckers are completely safe from even the sawed-off.
ML
3/17/07
The teacher, a Tallahassee neurologist, had joined us this evening and he forwarded the proposition that there was such a thing as “bad protoplasm”. Rhesus monkeys had it and wooly monkeys didn’t. His classification rang true as it was easy to think of animals whose mobility, agility and hostility far exceeded their station in life; those spiritually akin to the creature in the Alien series.
Based upon many encounters and several reasons my vote for baddest protoplasm goes to the common snapping turtle Chelydra serpentine. To begin with turtles as a group are not a first order menace. Oh a slider/cooter will take a swing at you every so often and a box turtle can probably pinch a finger in its closing shell but on the whole turtles are not exactly junk yard dogs. The common snapping turtle, however, is a junk yard dog. The species name says a lot about a striking speed that clearly impressed a visiting Swedish naturalist 250 years ago. And with a top wild weight of 75 pounds and an average of 10-35 pounds they are not to be tooted with.
My first tooting with came at about 10 when a pick-up safari was exploring a willow tree lined muddy creek behind our apartment. There was a piece of plywood, half in and out of the water, that one of the leader kids turned over. And under it was a 4 pound snapper also half in and out of the water. With slow menace he backed into the creek and was gone. I did not know such creatures existed and 50 yards from where I slept!
First capture was about a year later in the same creek. The fact that we had just returned from a Florida vacation must have accounted for the fact that I thought I was charging a big crab floating next to the far bank (pointy posterior shells as the similarity I guess). I picked up the one pound snapper and headed home where he likely stayed in an aquarium until he stunk us out –they have a distinctive unpleasant aroma.
The little ones, babies to about one pound, are fairly restrained; the attitude seems to set in at about three pounds but I don’t actually remember my first capture of the standard model. Fortunately snappers come with handles so if you get behind them you can pick them up by their long tails. This begs the question of “Why?” They bite, they’re big and they smell bad. This may explain the absent engram of first capture of a grown one as the typical conversation runs “I don’t want this thing; you want this thing?”
As driving teenagers we came across snappers in numbers from time to time. One day at Cove Lake, Dave and I were exploring a large area of foot deep water with a mud bottom. Snappers leave a characteristic trail in mud consisting of a two column path of foot prints with a continuous line up the middle where they drag their tail. We spotted the first trail and mud buried traveler quickly, then another and another. We ended up just counting them because if nobody wants one, fifty of the suckers are completely safe from even the sawed-off.
ML
3/17/07
Friday, March 9, 2007
7. Pop's milk snake
Before I turned six I lived on the Pennsylvania/New York border; my family in Olean, my grandparents near Bradford. Pop’s house, which he said when last I saw him, had seen six generations with Shaving 2’s visit at the age of eight months. Everything seemed smaller than what I remembered except the field running up the hill from his back yard to the tree line. A sloping affair of knee high grass where the after dinner entertainment was watching the deer step out of the forest. (Once he said he had seen bear)
Pop worked his “leases”. Pennsylvania oil pumping stations where horse-shaped pumps delivered the greenish crude out of the ground into big open – wooden I seem to remember –Jacuzzi-like barrels. It smelled good but he said it would give me a headache.
Because of his work, Pop had a long shed; long enough to accommodate runs of pipe that go along with pumping oil. The shed was not far from the house and at the bottom of the field that ran the valley’s length. And along with the tools and shed of an oil man came scattered sheet metal roofing and a rock pile. And along with the sheet metal roofing and the rock pile came garter snakes galore!
Rock pile captures tended to be one snake per flipped rock. Not every rock, of course, but there were a lot of rocks. Sheet metal roofing turn-overs could often uncover more than one garter snake and I’d grab as many as I could. I don’t remember keeping them and didn’t know to use a pillow case at the time. There was one sweep were I carried a bucket and returned with five in about five minutes. I remember because somebody, Aunt Bid I think, said “Look at this, the gosh darn kid has already got five of them”. I also remember cutting one’s head off and cutting him open to discover what they ate. It was a worm but afterwards I felt the knowledge not worth the price. When I learned how to read I looked such matters up in books.
Garter snakes are not big biters but they are big poopers. Not a particularly pleasant aroma but you get used to it, as the price of doing this business, and it becomes the smell of success. Not unlike how your hands smell after a successful fishing trip.
Because garter snakes do not bite what happened one evening made an impression. I flipped the tin and there was a not-garter snake that reared back and bit me as soon as I reached for him. I dropped the tin and headed back into the house for dinner.
A decision faced me as I knew three things: a) it was not a garter snake, b) it bit me and c) some not-garter snakes were trouble. I figured I ought to tell somebody but also figured that some things could change that might include my being forbidden to catch snakes. Dying was also on my mind; decisions, decisions. I decided to just eat dinner and see how events unfolded.
In hindsight I am so sure it was a milk snake that I can almost see it now. From a practical stand point the real danger was zero (ah books) as the only indigenous venomous snakes were timber rattlesnakes – which Pop assured me he knew where to find but would not show me.
The question is; what should I have done? Probably I should have mentioned the bite but then again I lived didn’t I! And when you’re headed down that sawed-off path “sometimes you just have to say, what the spawn”. I never told anybody until now. Hope I don’t get in trouble.
ML
3/2/07
Pop worked his “leases”. Pennsylvania oil pumping stations where horse-shaped pumps delivered the greenish crude out of the ground into big open – wooden I seem to remember –Jacuzzi-like barrels. It smelled good but he said it would give me a headache.
Because of his work, Pop had a long shed; long enough to accommodate runs of pipe that go along with pumping oil. The shed was not far from the house and at the bottom of the field that ran the valley’s length. And along with the tools and shed of an oil man came scattered sheet metal roofing and a rock pile. And along with the sheet metal roofing and the rock pile came garter snakes galore!
Rock pile captures tended to be one snake per flipped rock. Not every rock, of course, but there were a lot of rocks. Sheet metal roofing turn-overs could often uncover more than one garter snake and I’d grab as many as I could. I don’t remember keeping them and didn’t know to use a pillow case at the time. There was one sweep were I carried a bucket and returned with five in about five minutes. I remember because somebody, Aunt Bid I think, said “Look at this, the gosh darn kid has already got five of them”. I also remember cutting one’s head off and cutting him open to discover what they ate. It was a worm but afterwards I felt the knowledge not worth the price. When I learned how to read I looked such matters up in books.
Garter snakes are not big biters but they are big poopers. Not a particularly pleasant aroma but you get used to it, as the price of doing this business, and it becomes the smell of success. Not unlike how your hands smell after a successful fishing trip.
Because garter snakes do not bite what happened one evening made an impression. I flipped the tin and there was a not-garter snake that reared back and bit me as soon as I reached for him. I dropped the tin and headed back into the house for dinner.
A decision faced me as I knew three things: a) it was not a garter snake, b) it bit me and c) some not-garter snakes were trouble. I figured I ought to tell somebody but also figured that some things could change that might include my being forbidden to catch snakes. Dying was also on my mind; decisions, decisions. I decided to just eat dinner and see how events unfolded.
In hindsight I am so sure it was a milk snake that I can almost see it now. From a practical stand point the real danger was zero (ah books) as the only indigenous venomous snakes were timber rattlesnakes – which Pop assured me he knew where to find but would not show me.
The question is; what should I have done? Probably I should have mentioned the bite but then again I lived didn’t I! And when you’re headed down that sawed-off path “sometimes you just have to say, what the spawn”. I never told anybody until now. Hope I don’t get in trouble.
ML
3/2/07
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