Diane and I were hiking at the Open Space Region left of the reservoir (OSMP). I was making conversation and chatting about the absence of rattlesnakes and how I ran all summer up here, blah blah.. We ascended the plateau on Eagle Pass and next thing I know she is screaming, reaching for my hand (i have a scratch mark from the nails), and running with high knees! I casually looked back (probably stupid in retrospect), hearing a rattle in the middle of my neck turning. Diane had been 1 foot from what appeared to be an adult rattlesnake (it was rather thick).

After the hike she remarked “I never thought I would ever encounter a rattlesnake”. I mentally chuckeld, “great, one more experience in her book!”.

we had rattlesnake visions all night. there is something about a snake encounter that gives to stickiness.

it sure has me wondering about future runs, though…hmmm….

Talk about an adrenaline rush!

You haven’t lived until you’ve almost stepped on a rattlesnake!

1 – My mother found me playing with a baby cottonmouth one day and astutely pointed out that it, not me, was wrapping it around my jumprope
2 – I was on a walk with my mother and friend when the tree that we had just passed under fell down across the road (pretty sure this was as a wicked storm was descending on us)
3 – My mother, for some reason, drove with me from Oxford to Memphis to pick up my grandmother from the airport in the midst of Hurricane Camille (not a genteel storm)
4 – We went on a long, long walk down a very quiet country road with some friends one day and the road was littered — truly littered — with rattlesnakes of all sizes and state of alert. One was flat, about three inches in girth and was stretched across the road so that you could see neither head nor tail, another was coiled and rattling and having a good old “I’m gonna strike you any minute” attitude and many, many more were in some state of sun induced stupor.

Memory number 4 has left me with a near phobia of snakes. The snake fear was further enhanced by the “farm” (sharecropper house and plot of land) that my great grandparents lived on in Benton, MS just outside of Yazoo. They had so many rattlers that you just heard a kind of distant hum not unlike we have here at night with crickets.

Rattlesnakes scare the pants off of me. I’m glad you made it back out okay and … I’ll add that to the list of things to worry/know about at the Feld residence! I already have a healthy concern about those pesky mountain lions!