I will also always remember the night we were in Wewa to interview and Mr. Miller asked us if we'd ever seen a gator and then proceeded to pull a baby alligator out of his pocket. No lie.
So, it should come as no surprise that when Mrs. Miller stopped by Sunday afternoon, she and her husband had something, uh, interesting to show us.
This is a "rattler." Someone around town killed it and brought it to Mr. Miller. You should know that Mr. Miller is a retired game warden, retired as recently as soon after we moved to Wewa. Apparently when someone kills something, whether on purpose or by accident, they drop it by the Millers. This includes bears and other varmints. His plan for this snake was to skin it and possibly make a belt. He offered for me to take part in the process, but I politely declined.I am thankful I wasn't the one to come face to face with this snake. I think I might have fainted. Seeing it dead was bad enough for me. Between the bear last week and this snake, I'm beginning to feel all of this nature is a little too close to home!
2 comments:
That's aMaZiNg--especially the baby gator in the pocket part. Wow. Love it.
My brother took my friend & me for a ride in his jeep in the woods across from our former house in Ormond Beach (by Daytona). He definitely stopped the jeep when he saw a 3-4 ft gator in our path and proceeded to use a rope to lasso it. He then took and taped it up to take to a friend of his who keeps gators as pets. This is the same brother who once had a pet wolf and has had pet snakes (HUGE ones) ever since I can remember. Nice, huh? Just made me think of that time.
I also remember a friend cutting off the head a huge rattler in Ormond and showing it to us as kids (I think I was 5/6). We were upset because it was threatening our cats. Apparently the thought of it biting us never even occured to us.
There was a guy in Inverness who shot a 7/8 footer, cut it up, grilled it and ate it for supper. He was featured in the newspaper.
Isn't Florida great?! And those stories don't even come from Wewa! ;-)
i'm telling you, you see things in the south you never thought possible. i had a run in with an armadillo a few nights ago and about lost it. first time for an armadillo run in...i even had to stop and think for a few seconds of what the heck it was. today i saw armadillo road kill...karma.
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