Who has a rattlesnake story?

[MalibuPam]

Yikes! We had a run-in today. Today I took my 4 kids into the Santa Monica Mtns nearby to go for a picnic hike. Is that a nice family outing or what? I thought so. We got out of the suburban in a big dusty dirt parking lot, and first thing, my 6 year old John goes to the bushes to throw up (carsick). My 9 year old asthmatic, Frank, says he needs his inhaler, so I go digging for it in the back of the car, when my 4 year old Becky yells, "SNAKE!" I turn around and 15 feet away is a 3 foot long rattlesnake, calmy slithering accross the parking lot directly toward us. William (age 10) and Frank jump back into the car, while John, Becky, and I scoot quickly out of the way. Over the next 5 minutes, we watch Mr. Snake slither under our car, and then disappear up the front driver's side wheel well. We knelt a good distance away and watched for several more minutes before it came back out, and continued on its way, into the bushes. We took a vote and it was unanimous. Hike cancelled! We took our picnic to a nice civilzed playground and that was it.

So who else has a rattler story?

Oh, I have one more. Our collie was bitten 4 times on the paw, in our yard, about 3 years ago. A few days at the vet and $500 in antivenom, and he was fine. I hear that was a very good reaction.

[queenb]

I've got a rattlesnake story too.... A few years ago I went out into the woods to dig up a few wild azaleas I had seen blooming the month before. It was pretty warm that morning and there was a big(about 5 ft, thick as my forearm) old timber rattler stretched across the path sunning himself. Well, at the time I had been learning to tan and preserve deer and other skins. So, I killed the rattler with my shovel, took it home, skinned it and preserved the hide. Later I made a belt out of it. I still have the belt although it's way too small for me now. I kind of felt bad about killing the snake after I did it; he wasn't bothering anyone!

[MollyRose]

This didn't happen to me, but to a friend.

He was driving in the southern part of the state when he pulled over to take a picture of something. He had to walk out into a field, and while he was getting the shot set up felt something tickling his thigh. When he looked down he saw that he was STANDING on one end of the snake (didn't know which end) and the other end was up his pant leg!

He had the presence of mind not to move his foot, and calmly bent down and cut whichever end was under his foot off with a pocket knife. Fortunately, he was standing on the head or he would definitely have been bitten!

And yes, he did take a picture first!