November 4, 2013
Once, when I was a small child, I found a snake in the corner of the field in back of our house. I don't know what kind of a snake it was as the rattlers themselves never came below the canal. I guess they didn't need to come down because the canal was a large source of water for them and the hills above that were full of things for them to eat, produce their young, and lead a quiet life. The fields below the canal were always being cultivated and they would have been disturbed...so they didn't need to come down past the canal unless looking for adventure.
Anyway, I was not supposed to be that far away from the yard and playing with snakes was not allowed. But the adventure for me was seeing why I was not allowed. I remember poking the snake with a barley shoot and then picking it up. It had a large swell in its middle as it had been eating little bird eggs and babies in the barley field where they continued to make their nests as if it was never going to be harvested and harm them in the least...the birds not the snakes. The birds never seemed to learn not to do that and the harvesters would eventually fold their nests into the center of the grain bins and alas into the cereal bins. Must remember not to eat cereal.