Rattlesnake Nightmares

 I had rattlesnake nightmares for years after I moved away from  my childhood home.  The reality of the dangers that faced barefooted children as they invented ways to spend summer school vacations came to mind again when a cousin emailed a story of his experiences on my grandparents sheep ranch.

Thanks for the snake pictures. They remind me of the "snake hunts" we had at the Tuovinen place in the 1940s. We hunted the dens on Sheep Mountain and Liisa Butte in the spring when the rattlers were coming out and in the fall when they were returning to the winter dens. I regret that we didn't take more pictures but on a good day we would get anywhere from a few rattlers to close to or more than 100 of them. In more recent years I did get a couple good snake pictures. Roger always kept track of where the good dens were and let us know when the snakes were active. The snakes seemed to use the same dens year after year but I suppose we never did find all of their dens. We drove nails into sticks made from small trees, usually chokecherries, and bent the nails over to use them as rakes to rake the snakes from the den areas. A couple of us would "sling" them down the hill and a couple others would kill them with sticks as they landed after flying through the air. It was advisable to stay awake when the snakes were being thrown down the hills so as not to get tangled up with them! It is interesting that, for some reason, only a few bull snakes would den up with the rattlers.
After the rattlers left the dens they would scatter over the surrounding prairie. I recall killing up to 20 of them in a day when lambing for Rudy and Mabel Mick in the Sheep Mountain Area. The sheep would let you know if a rattler was in the area as they would split around the snake and leave plenty of room. It was interesting that some horses were very frightened of snakes and others were not. I recall that a horse of Lahti's was bit in the nose two or three times - the fang marks were quite visible. The nose swelled up to about twice the normal size and it was difficult for the horse to eat for quite a while but it did usually did survive. I was using a small white horse that had respect for the snakes and managed to evade them, sometimes very quickly! When spending all day in the saddle I used to alternate one leg and then the other around the saddle horn. There is little or no chance of staying aboard when the horse moved quickly and I ended up on the ground more than several times as a result. A State snake hunter named Jackley used traps in the den areas and caught many rattlers with his method. The snakes would push a cellophane - covered entrance aside to get in but were unable to get out.

It reminds me of when we talked Aunt Jennie Tuovinen into cooking rattlesnakes for us (Roger Kuoppala and I). We, of course, had to prepare them for cooking. They actually didn't taste bad if a person could forget what one was eating. As I recall she fried them and the meat was light colored and tasted something like chicken. Also we saved the skins and tanned them to put over belts for effect. We used to get the rattlesnakes in the spring and fall when they were denning or coming out of the dens. On good? days we would get from 50 to 100 rattlers along with a few bull snakes which apparently denned with the rattlers. I recall on one of our trips to Sheep Mountain Uncle John Tuovinen was herding sheep in the area and when a rattler started into a hole Uncle John grabbed it and pulled it out. We thought that was either very brave or simply a not very intelligent thing to do.

This is a very abbreviated summary of some of my snake hunting adventures,

Vine Deloria, Jr.

"When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours." –Vine Deloria, Jr

Vine Deloria, Jr. (born 1933-2005) is known as a revolutionary thinker who speaks out against the decadence of U.S. culture and insists that young Native Americans receive traditional teachings before exposing themselves to the philosophies of the dominant Euro-American culture.

His Nationality is Standing Rock Sioux, American.  He was born in Martin, SD to Vine Sr. (1901-1990) who studied English and Christian theology and became an Episcopal archdeacon and missionary on the Standing Rock.

Deloria, Jr. earned a degree in general science from Iowa State University, then served with the Marines, and in 1963 earned a theology degree from the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island, Illinois.  He earned a law degree from the Univ. of Colorado in 1970.

Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, New York: Macmillan, 1969, remains one of the most significant non-fiction books written by a Native American. The book was noteworthy at the time for its relevance to the American Indian Movement that was in its infancy.

White Gloves

I recall with a tinge of fondness,  the hat and white glove days of my late teens.  Later, much later, I bought white gloves at every garage sale if they were out on a table.  Actually, I had quite a nice little collection of them.  On Tuesday they were nearly all put to good use and they will be again when I start digitizing my father's slides from the 50's and 60's.

We have obtained the services of a sweet friend for a few hours every other week to help us at home.  As we had cleaned so well prior to the photography session, I had Tutu clean the three chandeliers in this very small house.  Three!  Many years ago my compulsive-shopper mate found an electric company going out of business, apparently  the fixture sale was irresistible.  I was very annoyed about that to tell the truth...thinking about the old saying about the purse and the pig's ear.  He recalls moving them around and around the house after he got them wired in...just to satisfy my home decorating eye.  That stopped me from complaining,  I could see that that was no easy task, even if he was perhaps 25 years younger then.

The three of us, He Who...Tutu, and me-self, were thrilled over the cleaning results.

Wanting to do things right, I discovered on the internet the correct way to clean crystals:   

The White Glove Method.

This method does not require removing crystal.

Prepare a cleaning solution of one part isopropyl alcohol to three parts distilled water. Put it in a spray bottle.  (Oops, I used only two parts water)

Wear white cotton gloves. Spray one glove with the above solution and keep one dry. Caress the crystal with the damp glove and wipe it immediately with the dry glove. This can be fun if you love crystal!

IMPORTANT: Do not use packaged cleaning fluids under any circumstances, even if they claim to be for crystal. They may contain ammonia or other chemicals that will eventually degrade the frame finish. The crystal cleaning methods described here are the only methods Schonbek supports.

Wonders Never Cease

Our week was busy, delightful, surprising and exhausting.  It actually started on the previous Friday with a thorough house cleaning that took three days,  many cleaning clothes, and a fair amount of Windex glass cleaner.

Monday after lunch a renouned photographer and his crew of nine came in and set up lighting, arranged pleasing backgrounds, and kept "He Who is Amazing" powdered and proper.  The house and "He Who.." .will perhaps be in a brochure for a national elder assistance at home company.  They had five people to choose from.  They moved or rearranged a goodly bunch of our collected 'stuff.'  I might add they put it all back in its proper place.  It was enjoyable and exhausting for all of us.  "This will be fun," David, the photographer told us.  He was right about that.

The Amazing One's  photo is in a book called "America at Home."  He is the fourth one down under Lifestyles. This excellent photographer had two pictures in the book.  Little did we know that the image in the back porch had made the book's selection, until a couple of weeks ago, when there was a knock on the door.  We opened it to find David, with the book, and such a deal for my man.

A Beautiful Son

This morning we attended the Mass of Christian Burial for my friend's son, Father Dan.  He was the same age as our own sons, taken down with an eight year battle with cancer.  He lives on, in memories, more alive than last month, last week.  He was loved.

This Lutheran loves Liturgy.  We experienced it in its most glorious worship.  It was good to go back to the liturgy I learned as a child and young person.  The First Reading, the Responsive Psalm, the Second Reading, led by nephews. The Gospel read and the Homily given by a local Priest who went to seminary with Fr. Dan.

The chancel was filled with two Archbishops, and what looked to be a hundred Priests all in white. The Chamber Singers, who he sang with at the Seminary at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN were here to sing him home in clear lovely accapella.

The faithful men in white robes and albs lined the way to the hearse singing again in Latin; an honor guard for one of their own.