I never assume we don't have a certain kind of snake here if it is known to exist in OK because eventually I'll see one, and often when I least expect it.

That's a nice fat timber rattler. It looks like it has been eating very well. Of course, with any venomous snake, even the small and young ones have dangerous venom, and I think people don't take the young ones seriously enough sometimes.

When we first moved here, I thought timber rattlers were rare....practically endangered. A neighbor of ours laughed at me and told me they weren't rare or endangered here. He wasn't kidding. We see them all the time. A long, long time ago, an old rancher told me he carried a gun in his pickup 24-7 to shoot rattlesnakes. He said nothing else scared him----not the four-legged predators, and not even the rabid skunks out in the daytime (though he did shoot them of course), and not the copperheads, but he was afraid of those timber rattlers. He emphatically told me "That snake will kill you!" and slammed his hand down on the hood of his truck for added impact. I promised him I'd be watchful and would be careful, and I always have tried to be just that. The locals watched me work all day every day in my garden those first few years we lived here and fretted that I was going to get bitten by a venomous snake if I "insisted" on being out there in the garden all day every day. They didn't hesitate to tell me so either. It was like having 5 or 6 extra dads. As I got older and the heat bothered me more, I got better about working in the morning and coming in by noon in hot weather. I do see a lot fewer snakes in the garden now than I did then, but it likely is because I'm just not out there as much in the afternoons as I used to be.

To educate me about what snake was what, our neighbors would throw one they had killed into the back of their pickup and bring it over to show it to me. They meant well----wanting me to know one when I saw one----but seeing all those snakes was hideous.

Our next-door neighbors had a little dog that probably had some rat terrier or something in him. He was a great dog. When he saw a copperhead, he'd kill it, skin it and eat it. I don't know if he did the same thing with the rattlers.