Wild Ozark™

~ Nature Artist in Kingston, Arkansas ~

Rattlesnake at the Gate

Written by

Madison

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Rattlesnake at the gate

Gnats have made it nearly impossible for me to stand being outside at my potting bench for very long.

Yesterday I did the little bit of work I needed to do at it while trying not to breathe so the pesky little buggers wouldn’t go up my nose. I pretty much needed to close my eyes too, because they wouldn’t stay out of there either.

So today when the wind picked up and it looked like it was going to rain, I went outside to see if that helped get rid of the gnats. It did!

Much much nicer to work with a storm approaching and no gnats. It never did rain, just cooled off nicely.

When I went to check the mail later, at the gate I saw the rattlesnake. It was stretched out and heading across the driveway.

Badger stepped on it!

Badger never even noticed it until the snake coiled up and started rattling, AFTER he’d stepped on it. Then he backed away good and got a really sheepish look on his face. It never even struck at him, though.

Then Turbo came along and saw it and barked and barked it and stayed way clear.

It’s so amazing how instinctive the warning of a rattle must be.

I let him go. I wasn’t dressed for snake dancing anyway. Flip flops… I got close enough for good pics, but not so close he could reach me.

He never tried to bite us, just wanted us to let him go.

Rattlesnake eye
Snake eye

 


Contact & About

email: madison@wildozark.com

phone: (479) 409-3429

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I’m a nature-lover, real estate agent & artist. Sometimes, I also write things. I began using local pigments to paint scenes from nature in the Ozarks in 2018.

All of my artwork is available in prints, and where originals are available, they are for sale. You can find all of that over at shop.WildOzark.com. I have a separate website for my real estate blogging and information at WildOzarkLand.com.

Don’t be confused by my various monikers. For pretty much everything online, I go by Madison Woods, a pen name I adopted when I first began writing and then later with my art. For real estate, I use my real name, Roxann Riedel. And for my fiction, there’s yet another pen name: Ima Erthwitch.

Sign up for my newsletter if you’d like to know when new workshops/nature experiences are scheduled, new artwork is finished, scheduled events/shows, and just general prose about life at Wild Ozark: WildOzark.com/newsletter

Comments

3 responses to “Rattlesnake at the Gate”

  1. Hognose Snake: a Master of Deception | Wild Ozark™

    […] got a lot of snakes around out here in the Ozarks. The ones I see most commonly include timber rattlesnakes, copperheads, DeKay’s Brown snakes, black rat snakes, ringneck snakes, speckled king snakes […]

    Reply
  2. Joyce Avatar
    Joyce

    I have enjoyed looking at your pics and reading about your snake, flood, and all. I can relate to most. Our terrible Sept. 2013 flood here in Colorado is still in recovery with the rebuilding and repairing in places and even major state highways up into the mountains and into Rocky Mnt. Nat’l Park, especially. We got major damage here from all four of our big rivers in the northern part of the state. My husband and I have a 3.8 acre lot we own in the mountains, northwest of Fort Collins, an hour away from our Loveland home and it too received damage. The ground was so saturated that it brought out snakes in hiding a few weeks after and our dog, Maggie was bit by a rattle snake on our lot when my husband was trimming and cutting down trees on our lot. He had to rush her down the mountain and road to the CSU veterinary hospital so she could get immediate attention and anti-venom injections to save her and build up immunity. She survived and healed quickly which we were very thankful for. We had a huge amount of rain this last spring and more flooding, but now is drying out so much they worry over wildfires starting as that is another problem in our part of the state, the mountain and forests areas. Hope you can revive and rebuild your business and get back to the things you love with nature, Madison. The thing we learn is that nature can destroy things and land in its furry, but not our spirit. 🙂 So, we pick up, start over and get moving again. Take care.

    Reply
    1. Madison Avatar
      Madison

      Hi Joyce, Wildfires would be terrible. They happen every summer out here on a small scale, nothing like y’all get out there. That would be terrifying to me.

      My business will be alright. it’ll just be next year before I get started with the plants again. Once we get our driveway repaired and I’m done with this book I’m working on, I’ll go back to the market with books and home-roasted coffee beans. For now, though, I’m pretty much land-locked at the house unless I take the 4-wheeler a long way around through to the gate where the truck is parked. That’s almost 1/4 mile. A pain even for just hauling the animal feed and my groceries home, so market can wait.

      Yep, we just do what we can, take it in stride and keep going. I’m taking advantage of this time to be a hermit-writer.

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