A Little Time Needed For The Ponds

Just had lunch at the Pilar Yacht Club before doing some rock collecting (for Quartsite only available in these parts along the Rio Grande). Need to get all my rock collecting done today before my tomorrow's massage.

I just want to say that I will no longer have to worry about Linda hunting me down to get rid of that friendly little Rattle Snake. Why you may ask or what have I done to Linda? Well the answer is simple, Linda has decided that the "compost area" now qualifies my domain and thereby off limits to her. In fact, she now refuses to even go anywhere near it. So now I am officially in charge of all things around the compost bins. Period, end of discussion!!!!

Because yesterday was another one of those beautiful southwest days and I sort of got caught up with my solar orders and everything seemed to be running smoothly, I decided on tending to the yard , the trees and the ponds. "The yard" is approximately a quarter acre, walled in area around the house, the rest of the 15 acres has been left pretty much the way we found it with as few changes as possible. The yard is where we have our various gardens, orchard, grape arbor, two green houses, compost bins, a very small grassed area where I can play with our dog, dog house, and two water features. You kind of get the picture.

Since we have had a number of days that appeared as though it was going to rain, but in reality nothing actually happened, it seemed to me that I needed to do some well overdue watering around the yard. I also needed to do some watering of our trees that are located outside the yard compound and up by my carving studio. Now if you live back east or say in the northwest where some of you live, watering is no big deal if that is what you have to do. However, here in the desert it is a bit different. Here, water is a valued commodity. I do have the advantage of having a well and collecting water from our home and studio. Thus I no longer have to haul water up to the mesa from a spring located down in the Rio Grande Gorge (I did that for about five years and I don't miss it at all). But even so, having a well does not mean I want to use unlimited amounts of water.

Within our yard as mentioned, we have two small ponds which hold a total of about 2,000 gallons. They are just big enough to provide us with a nice eco-system for our assortment of native birds, frogs, snails (four different types), and our collection of colorful gold fish (the oldest are about 8 to 9 inches in length, way cool). There are other creatures that share our ponds as well, they include but not limited to Tiger Salamanders, Gardner and Bull Snakes, and some kind of New Mexican Toad. One day a few weeks ago I noticed that one of my larger frogs had a finch sticking out of his mouth, I guess I must have been slipping up on catching him grasshoppers. I thought Pogo my male cat, snakes, falcons, and hawks were the only problem the local bird population had to deal with but frogs?

The reason I am mentioning the ponds, is that they played an important roll in my watering project. Well at least one of them did and the reason for that is that for the entire summer it has been plagued with algae and it looked like thick pea soup. I had grew up at a lake back east (Packanack Lake) the got this same yucky green color every year in August and the lake management wrote it off as the yearly purging. Anyway I decided to drain this pond and use the water for some badly needed watering. I managed to do about forty 5 gallon buckets worth done before the ole back told me it had enough plus I think my arms are a few inches longer. The rest of the water was drained though a hose. I managed to drain the pond about 75 percent and refilled it with fresh water from our cistern.

When I got up this morning it was amazing what a difference a little water can do to the mood of our plants. Linda discovered a single strawberry on one of our plants and the grapes are doing great this year.

This has been a good year for our orchard and vegetable garden, The apple trees are producing well, although the apricot trees produced some fruit but not much, and the plumb tree while being a haven for finches, humming birds and all sorts of bugs, flies, lady bugs, bees, and humming bird mouths it did not produce one fruit. Our grape plants are producing really tasty grapes even though they are not exactly what we had planted, they are a mixture of the two types. We had the best year yet for our strawberry and raspberry patches. I think this may be the best year for our asparagus as well.

Well, there you have it, more ramblings from the desert.

Terry R. Wolff

I Reckon It Was Only A Matter Of Time!

Well that didn't take long, he's back

I again was summoned by Linda to once again relocate my friendly little Rattle Snake. Yes it has been less than a week and my little friend has once again returned to our compost bins looking for some tasty mice (I am assuming he finds them tasty) which live there. I really like the idea that he is interested in reducing the rodent population but as I mentioned before, there is a problem with that. Pogo, our hunter cat also like to peruse the compost for the same reason. And as nonchalant as this little snake seems around us, he does have the potential of perhaps costing us our home with just one bite.

So once again I had to retrieve my snake handler tool and a bucket and go retrieve my little friend. This time he was not where Linda ad found him and it took a bit to locate him. It gave me a weird feeling to know that somewhere in the vicinity there was a Rattle Snake but not knowing where or how big or how aggressive and upset it may be.

As I moved the tarp where Linda first saw him, he eventually decided to leave that compost bin and move a couple of bins down to relocate in the straw bin. This where I convinced him to slip his little head into the crude loop on my makeshift snake tool. It actually took several attempts.

At last, I managed to catch him and place him into the bucket. This time I put a lid on the bucket which made traveling to his new HOME a bit more comfortable for both him and me.

The new location was about a quarter of a mile south of the ranch at the ole Garlic Farm. Although this farm has been abandon for several years so I felt he may actually like his new home and not come back for a visit. At least this would be best for our cats if he would stay away.

He was just as calm and relaxed as he was during our last encounters. I am not that familiar with the habits of Rattle Snakes but over the years when I have encountered either Diamond Backs or Timber Rattlers they seemed to be extremely more aggressive. Meaning that hey would immediately coil themselves up, rattle their tails and hiss, if not attempt to strike. If this is any indication of how they normally react, then this guy has not been hanging out with the right snake instructor. The only time he has ever rattled his tail was when I lifted him into the bucket and it didn't even make any noise.

When I released him, he did not seem interested in leaving the bucket so I had to sort of pour him out of it. He turned and looked at me and than moved to a shady spot under a Pinion tree. There he sort of curled up, not in one of those poises we always see them at in magazines and looked directly at me but than just a relaxed and turned away facing away from me. For a few moments he let me stroke his back (with the tool I made, no not my hand), never once rattling his tail or even turning back toward me. Perhaps the most nonchalant Rattler I have ever seen. After several minutes once he had enough of me, he slowly moved away.

Will he venture back for a third visit, we shall see.

Terry R. Wolff

Bye, bye little friend!!!

More Ramblings from the Carson Desert

Oh, about a month ago when I was checking out a plant near our gate to the yard, I bumped into a medium size snake. He did not to be upset with me and therefore never moved, spit or anything, just looked at me. He looked like a Bull Snake except that his head was sort of shaped like that of a rattler. Not being sure I grabbed my camera and snapped a couple of shots.

I then drove down to Poco Loco our town and community center. I showed the photos around and the general consensuses was that it was a bull snake trying to imitate a rattler. This is a known practice of Bull Snakes.

I returned home and the snake was still there. When my wife Linda came home and looked she thought that his head was somewhat rattle snake looking but sort of felt that it was indeed a Bull Snake. At about ten that night I checked again and sure enough he was still there. However in the morning he had moved on.

Over the next month I encountered him again, once in the raspberries, behind the greenhouse, and a few other places. He was always sort of curled up and in no rush to go anywhere. I assumed that he was surviving on the local rodents as all my bull frogs and fish were in tact. He became a regular object around the yard (this is the area of the Solar Ranch which surrounds the house and is where we spend most of our time).

Anyway this past week Linda came looking for me at the studio and said that I had to get rid of my little friend before someone (cats, dog, or us) got bit. She explained that she found him under a tarp she just lifted and that this time she could see his collection of five rattles. So, I made myself a tool and we went down to the compost where Linda nearly touched him. Sure enough he was still there right where Linda left him, so I looped my new tool over his head and tightened up on it. I than lifted him into a bucket and took him down to an out cropping of lava rocks over at the Petaca (what was at one time a raging water flow, strong enough to carve a mini gorge that is a couple hundred feet across before man took all its water). I released him and he started to slither away but stopped and came back toward me. He got about half a foot from me and stopped. At that point I talked with him and wished him well, explaining that because of the venom which he possessed that at $40g’s a bite and with no medical coverage, that it was just too risky and that it would be better for him to hang out at the Petaca.

Over the years we have had several small Bull Snakes, Gardner Snakes, and some very large Bull Snakes visit our yard. But this is the first Rattler and I hope the last. I have since learned that our rattler is known as a Desert Sand Rattler and they don’t get much bigger than about 2 feet. Evidently they are not as aggressive as their bigger cousins the Diamond Backs.

Terry R. Wolff