Mileage Marker 4, Reddington Pass

My job is to fill two large Waste Management garbage cans each week. I use a regular Rubbermaid can to collect "yard waste", then carry the can-full over to one of the large WM cans and dump the contents. Each Tuesday, the garbage truck comes and collects. In Pima County, WM doesn't segregate yard waste from ordinary garbage. Which is why we pay for two WM cans. On our acre of the Sonoran Desert, I pull a lot of yard waste.

This morning, I was trimming a palo verde tree in front, clipping the unruly, long branches into small pieces so they pack inside the regular garbage can. Then I dumped its contents into the large, two-wheeled WM can by the side of the garage. Twice I dumped and stuffed a load into the big can.

I keep a piece of 4x4 wood there. I use it to stomp down the branches to make room for more. "Stomp, stomp, stomp" as I jammed and flattened the branches inside the big WM can. I clipped another Rubbermaid can full of branches, then again dumped it into the bigger WM can. Again I smashed it down at least a dozen times. I can stuff a lot of branches inside a WM can.

Then I noticed something coiled between the two wheels of the WM can. It's amazing how time slows down as the mind catches up with a dangerous situation. It's a snake. Not just any snake. It's a rattlesnake taking a snooze under the WM can. It doesn't make a move.

I walked backwards really quickly. "Shit," I thought. Actually, I had lots of thoughts, mostly of surprise, fear, and relief. And within the same space of a few seconds, I thought a lot about how damned lucky I was that it was still early in the morning and it was still almost chilly. Maybe the snake wasn't too active to respond. Maybe it hadn't struck because the wheels of the can were facing sideways, so one of the wheels was blocking me from a direct lunge. But even so, "Shit" sums up the tenor of my feelings as the realization sank in that twice I had been standing within a couple of feet from that rattler, blithely smashing down branches inside the can, twenty or thirty times.

I suspect it was the same rattler I saw a month and a half ago sleeping on top of the east side of the gully. See the end of my Two and a Quarter Tons post.

"I have to discourage that snake from hanging around here," I thought to myself. I picked up a small rock and threw it. I had mixed feelings. Part of me doesn't like the idea of hurting snakes. The rest of me was scared and angry. It hissed and rattled. Then I thought, "I better shut the garage door" which was about four feet from the snake. I didn't want the rattler to take refuge inside our cluttered but cozy garage.

I ran inside the front door to get to the garage. I was too frightened to use the garage door. I went around the house away from the rattler. I told Shari about the rattler as I was running back out the front door. She came out to look. She was getting too close for my comfort -- maybe twenty feet away.

Her response to the situation was much more practical than just throwing a rock. She went inside to call Rural Metro. If you pay the monthly fee,* Rural Metro provides not only fire brigade and ambulance service, they also pick up rattlers. (If you don't subscribe and need the service, you pay through the nose.)

I kept an eye on the can and the rattler as I waited for the fire department truck to show up. I could barely see the edge of the rattler's coils in the space between the two wheels.

Same species; different specimen.

It took the guy about a half of a minute and a pair of snake tongs to pick up the writhing, hissing rattler and plop it inside a plastic bucket. "Ring tailed diamondback," he declared.

Shari asked if they dumped the snakes in the Mormon graveyard down the street. We had heard local rumors about the practice.

"No", he said. "We take them to Reddington Pass." Once a week, on Wednesdays, they take their collection there; about a dozen in the summers. "We leave them at mileage marker 4. Probably a place to avoid if you are hiking around."

Good idea.

*Erratum. Rural Metro bills annually.