EISPIRATEN

2days back we found one of our cats cornering a rattlesnake in the bushes beside an occupied trailer. Now, our camp policy is to catch and release all rattlers away from our area where we work and live. Our cat that cornered the snake is the younger of the two and doesn't know it can be killed by the rattlesnake. Our other cat already knows to stay away from them. So we used a snakestick and placed him into an aquarium to calm down and be released when he's not so mad at us. He was maybe 3 ft. long more or less and nice and fat. Well, the next morning I checked on him and noticed he was completely unresponsive. I opened the aquarium screen top and gently poked him with a stick. Still, no movement. So I reported this to a campmate and he sharpened his knife and proceeded to skin and gut him. We salted the skin, buried the head and guts, and had a long prices of bony meat! So I chopped up some zucchinis, bell pepper, and tomato. and the snake meat was chopped into chunks. I stir fried this in olive oil and with all the veggie juices made a quick stew. The snake tasted pretty good...like chicken. But was bony as fish! Poor guy...he was yummy. Aho!

One of the reasons we relocate rattlers is because we have city people come to camp a few times a month and many of them are amazingly clueless about life in the mountains...we have to keep those kind of people safe, just like our little cat.