"They'd been out there about a half hour after the foreman left and the shadows started getting longer...and rattlesnakes started slithering out of EVERY crack in EVERY rock...everywhere you looked. The snakes were particularly interested in the shade of the trailer. The snakes got so thick my cousins wound up sitting on top of the trailer until the foreman came back to get them around 7 PM...grinning. Apparently when the shadows are long and there's some cool, the snakes love it...So working in certain areas was limited to parts of the day that had full overhead sun."
I experienced something similar in the Sacramento Valley just south of Red Bluff on the Western slope of the valley. I was on the instrument and we were finishing up a long survey line. The weather was record breaking hot with ground temps in the 120s. About the time the field crew got up to the gun, two-foot rattlesnakes started coming out of the ground. We packed up and left as quickly as possible dancing so as to not step on the snakes. Never seen anything like this - had to work hard to walk and not step on a snake. There were litterely thousands of them.
So, Paden Cash, your cousins were probably telling you the truth."
I said it before and I'll say it again: They could have simply planted my corpse right there. That's the kind of stuff that leads to horrifying, recurring nightmares.
Holy Cow, post: 369189, member: 50 wrote: I said it before and I'll say it again: They could have simply planted my corpse right there. That's the kind of stuff that leads to horrifying, recurring nightmares.
So, you are saying that you don't fit the mold of Indiana Jones having to go into a pit of snakes...... some of us just aren't :'(
[USER=50]@Holy Cow[/USER]
Oak Grove was where my father attended school all 6yrs worth. The school was located about a mile or so East of the highway intersection at Winkle Store. It did not open after WWII. I began at Lone Grove that was 2mi to the west.
There were plenty of alligator in the bottoms around there. Wildlife officials relocated 18 adult gators from a 50ac lake 8mi to the east to appease the developers of a subdivision dubbed Horseshoe Bend.
@Nate
We camped near the landing before the end of Rains CR3330. By 1978 too many city folks had moved in with all their newfangled rules and regulations and privatized all the ramblin' grounds that the lake did not cover.
We rode up and down by the end of that big bridge... All around cr3330, to 515, and the big bridge, closest to 515.
All covered with water now.
N
Bruce Small, post: 369178, member: 1201 wrote: We could depend on Steve Owens to code Dead Kat when doing a road topo.
Only slightly related, my favorite attorney called to chat about a survey drawing, and she asked, "Why is the dog so sad?" Eventually I found the note by the entrance curb that said, "Depressed cur (sic)."
Ah, those were the good old days.
I once made up about 10 shots in an open area and coded them "cow". I put a note in the book that said "shots 201-210 represent a snapshot in time at 2:32 pm, as subjects were constantly moving in an unpredictable pattern".
Bruce Small, post: 369178, member: 1201 wrote: We could depend on Steve Owens to code Dead Kat when doing a road topo.
For a major lawsuit, was sent out to locate an ancient road that a land owner was not allowing other land owners access to get to their property.
The road actually was a connecting road that left the original road from Jefferson to Linden and connected Bera to Kellyville.
The land owner had brought in every dead animal he could gather and spread along the 3500å± ft road.
Office manager had a fit when my notes showed the location of cows, dogs, cats, possums and rats spread out everywhere.
The smell was most foul and we practically had to fend off buzzards and there were dozens of them everywhere.
Some of the smaller things were gone but a fur wad remained.
Almost lost the chainmen when a live possum crawled around inside one cow poking its head out snarling and hissing as they passed.
One of the most bizarre jobs ever.
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" border="0" alt="Gagging" title="Gagging" />
gschrock, post: 369145, member: 556 wrote: Not a lot of snakes on this side of the mountains, but would find in job files some mystery DC codes to indicate various dead critters... my favorite was "WEC" for Wile E. Coyote...
Bruce Small, post: 369178, member: 1201 wrote: We could depend on Steve Owens to code Dead Kat when doing a road topo.
Only slightly related, my favorite attorney called to chat about a survey drawing, and she asked, "Why is the dog so sad?" Eventually I found the note by the entrance curb that said, "Depressed cur (sic)."
Ah, those were the good old days.
One of my favorite DC codes to use was D*IR with the "*" being whatever particular animal I had encountered: DDIR, DCIR, etc., lol
Never had any problem with rattlesnakes, they USUALLY will get well out of your way. Those damn cottonmouths are a different story. They will actually "come after you" if they even see you and they smell too. It's hard to kill a snake with a rod by trying to stab it so I just use the prisim end to smack 'em with. 😉
Biggest snake I ever came across was just a really big gopher snake (thankfully). The party chief and I were hiking across some overgrown ground near a pond. It seemed that we were coming across wild rabbits about every 300 feet or so. Then, about halfway across this area, he suddenly steps forward over something. I see a fat snake moving across the little trail we were following. The markings were a bit like a rattlesnake, but it was fatter than any snake I had seen outside. The party chief takes the shovel handle and slips it under the belly and starts to lift the snake up. It speeds up and slithers forward, over and off of the shovel handle. I never saw the head, but the whole snake was at least 7 feet long. No rattle on the tail, so I was able to start breathing again. I'm certain that this particular snake was really enjoying the bounty of little rabbits living out here.
Unrelated to that time, I was out doing a topo survey of a strip of county road that was slated to be widened and improved out to a 4 lane divided highway. I was on the rod and took a shot. Over the radio I told the instrument operator, "This is an empty beer bottle." Without pause, he asked, "What kind?" So I told him, "Bud Light". We got a little chuckle and just left it at that. Jump forward to a couple weeks later when the office crews were finally drawing the topography. I get a call while I'm out in the field from the drafter working on the topo. "Hey Syd, that empty Bud Light bottle you shot, was is 12 ounces or 32?" So I told him it was a 32 ounce bottle. We got another good chuckle out of that. Jump forward several months when I'm looking at the CAD files of the improvement plans setting up the staking. I see the "bottle shot" in the topo drawing and zoom in on it. I can see this little speck of line work. So I keep zooming in. I got zoomed in quite a ways and then I see, carefully drawn, a 32 ounce Bud Light bottle. Best joke ever.
skwyd, post: 369287, member: 6874 wrote: ... I never saw the head, but the whole snake was at least 7 feet long..
Working in the Oklahoma Panhandle (Baja, OK as we call it) one can find, IF ONE HAD THE DESIRE, rather large western rattlesnakes. One evening were driving back and about a quarter of mile ahead of the truck we saw a huge fat rattlesnake crossing the road. He looked like a firehose stretched across there. By the time his nose was at the solid stripe on the right, his tail had just barely cleared the center skip. That's 13.5' between stripes...I'm guessing he was 11.5' to 12' long.
We stopped and tried to see where he went, but nobody would get out of the van. I would have, but I was driving and my hands were full of steering wheel....:whistle:
Alaska's got no snakes (poisonous or not). No ticks (mostly), no fleas, no poisonous arachnids, no chiggers, no noseeums. Just a mosquito or two, in the summer.
And that is just alright by me.
there is a couple of days in early spring in the deep South (think upper Gulf Coast) when the snakes come out. Cutting line, I have seen non poisonous snakes overhead and waist high (some falling out while cutting and scaring stuff our of you) with the mocassins and diamondbacks on the ground. Yes, diamondbacks let you know when you are getting close but they are not louder than you cutting line. Since wintering over in the ground, the rattlers and mocassins are mostly lethargic and don't know to get out of the way.
OK. Time to gross everybody out. BTW, it's fine to sound like a six year old saying, "eeewwwwww...."
A Harris, post: 369206, member: 81 wrote: For a major lawsuit, was sent out to locate an ancient road that a land owner was not allowing other land owners access to get to their property.
The road actually was a connecting road that left the original road from Jefferson to Linden and connected Bera to Kellyville.The land owner had brought in every dead animal he could gather and spread along the 3500å± ft road.
Office manager had a fit when my notes showed the location of cows, dogs, cats, possums and rats spread out everywhere.
The smell was most foul and we practically had to fend off buzzards and there were dozens of them everywhere.
Some of the smaller things were gone but a fur wad remained.
Almost lost the chainmen when a live possum crawled around inside one cow poking its head out snarling and hissing as they passed.
One of the most bizarre jobs ever.
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That is one of the funniest damn things I have ever heard. :-):-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D
