Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Western Rattlesnake Disappearing Down A Hole

I lifted an old piece of sheet metal today and found this hugely fat Rattlesnake underneath. I'm not sure if its girth was due to a recent meal or to imminent babies. It had a nice olive-green hue as well. Just beautiful. All of the kids in the camp got to see it, which is funny because I'm teaching a bug camp this week. When I taught the reptile camp, we hardly saw any reptiles but found lots of cool bugs, and now that I'm teaching the bug camp we're finding reptiles but not much in the way of bugs. Life is funny that way.

I did get to eat some barbequed mealworms that another instructor handed me. Most of the kids in my camp had some too, except for one kid who didn't like barbeque flavored food. Perhaps I can track some down with original mealworm flavor... You can buy them in a variety of flavors here. They also have lots of other interesting invertebrate sweets for sale.

After camp, I went home and loaded most of my animals into the car so I could go do a critter program for a local church. They've been hiring me to do this once a year for the last few years, and its a good way to bring in a little extra money. $75 for an hour of my time is a good deal. My hour started out with a small group of kids, but as things progressed, groups of increasingly younger kids filed into the room and soon the place was packed. Lots of kids touched snakes or tarantulas for the first time. I'd advertise but if I started doing this kind of thing regularly it would be too hard on my animals.

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