Snake on a fence

When we were kids, and well into his adulthood, David like to play practical jokes on people. I have tons of stories about things he did like putting saran wrap on the toilet or vaseline on the door knobs, but the best prank he ever did on me when we were kids involved a rattlesnake.

We saw a lot of rattlesnakes growing up where we did. I was always afraid of them because I had common sense, but David was never scared of them and would tease them and mess with them. When a snake was found near our house, my dad or David would kill it. We had a snake killing stick which was a long stick with a loop on the end. You would stand away from the snake and use the stick to place the loop over the snake's head and then pull really hard on the wire to trap it. Then they would chop its head off with an axe. (I'm not even joking this stuff totally happened!) Here is a picture similar to what it looked like. I am sure Grandpa still has it somewhere out at their house.

So my brother was always out wandering around and catching snakes when he was your age and a bit older. One day he called me out to the pheasant house (that's a whole other story about how my dad decided to build a building and keep pheasants in it for a few years). Behind the pheasant house was a wooden fence that formed the pen for the cows in the barnyard. I turned the corner and he was nowhere to be found, but then I heard a rattle! And up on the wooden fence was a huge rattlesnake! It was looking right at me and it's mouth was open like it was ready to strike. I screamed and ran away as fast as I could.

David chased after me laughing. Turns out, the snake was dead. He had killed it and then laid it up on the fence as a practical joke. He then hid behind the pheasant house with a rattle and waited for me to come around the corner and scare me. I was so mad, but it was a pretty good practical joke.