Rattlesnake Traps and Crocus

Our May/June issue of South Dakota Magazine came in the mail a couple of days ago. It kept He Who Must Be Obeyed up later than usual, reading about the "Bucking Horse Highway" that runs through my home town of Buffalo, SD, in the largest county of the state. Harding County is in the northwest corner and is about the size of Rhode Island according to Jerry Wilson who writes about highway 85 which runs from Saskatchewan to Juarez, Mexico.

This current issue is a nostalgic read for this Buffalo Gal. Pictured is the beautiful Cave Hills Lutheran church which was built by my Finnish immigrant grandparents and their neighbors and is the church in which I was baptized and confirmed. My ancestors and many relatives are buried in the churchyard cemetery, including a double cousin, Jack, whose son, Stan is mentioned in the article as the finder of the TRex Stan south of my grandparents homestead.

Speaking of buried; buried in the magazine is a little piece called "Remembering a Snake Hunter," about A.M. Jackley. There is a photo of him beside his pickup, which I recall as well. I often visited my grandparents when Jackley came to their place to check his rattlesnake traps. When he came back to the house we always went to look at the wire screened traps full of wreathing, rattling, killers. There were a couple of snake dens on Liisa Butte where we picked crocus in the spring about the same time the rattlers were waking up and crawling out of their winter dens and onto the prairie to satisfy their appetites after a long hibernation. The crocus were always worth the adventure.