Stupidity Strikes Again

Hi everyone, sorry it's been a while since I've written; and I think this will be my last post so I will try and make it a good one. Back on the 17th, we were driving to the ranch house to make a call in when we saw this huge, bloated fence post off in the distance. When we got close enough, we quickly rolled up our windows - it was a huge swarm of bees! Yikes! When we told Paul about it, he said that it was probably a hive with a new queen and they were on the move. They were covering the fence post to protect the queen. The following day I saw three snakes, all different species. I guess Artemeo was right about August being the breeding season. One of the snakes was even at the site. I was walking up to the tower to put up some quail when I almost stepped on a Mohabi (type of rattler - white bands near the rattle are the same size or larger than the black ones). He was all flattened out but didn't move or make any sounds. The following day we were invited by the two girls at the Baeza Ranch to go horse back riding. The girls knew this young cowboy, Michael, who rallied up six horses for us to ride. We took them out down a dirt road leading into the mountains. Michael even had a dog with him that was half wolf. While we rode, the dog would chase all of the jackrabbits up the mountain sides. Even after all of that excitement, we couldn't help but to take the afternoon off the following day. We hung out in Sierra Blanca, and here's the stupid part - while I was doing kart wheels outside; the truck keys fell out of my pocket and we were therefore stranded in Sierra Blanca. We stayed the night and called Paul with the bad news the next morning. Yet again, Paul wasn't even perturbed by the situation. (I guess two other attendants lost there keys just a day ago.) Being that there were no spares for the truck (good one Peregrine Fund - I guess they just weren't ready for me), Brie drove us back to our site very early in the morning. Thank goodness our site was close enough to walk from our house. During our night shift that same day, Paul drove up with an ATV in the back of his truck. He said that someone would need to go with him and stay in Sierra Blanca for the night, and in the morning head off with Angel Montoya to get another key made in El Paso (yet another 2 hours away -making that 3 1/2 hours from our house). Well, I offered up myself to stay the night because I knew Christine wouldn't feel comfortable all by herself. So, they drove off and then I realized I had made a mistake. Just 30 minutes or so before Paul pulled up we saw a huge rattlesnake in the path to our tower and heard another one just behind the blind. Now I had to go up on that path to take down the quail; if I was to be bit I was dead. Well luckily I made it - I'm definitely appreciating life a bit more now. The next day during the mid-day break, I was still on my own, so I thought it would be nice to explore the ranch with my new set of wheel. Boy, was it fun, and man can that ATV go fast. Well, when i returned to the house I noticed something was bit different... there was a snake slithering up our windowsill! My goodness. After Christine finally returned at about 11 at night we thought it would be fun to go to Sierra Blanca again to hang out with Lauren, who was on her on own now. We walk around town, went to a rock place (there's a lot of them around here), had some lunch; on our walk back to her house this dog started to follow us. No, it wouldn't let us touch it but it just continued to tag along. Everyone on our way kept asking us if he was ours and we'd just shake our heads saying no. Even when we walked past a bunch of prisoners all decked out in their stripes, they all yelled "this here you're dog?" and this time with a little quiver in our voices we replied yet again with a "a nnooo." The day or so later we were at the site just about to end our morning shift when Jose (one of the ranch hands) showed up. He wanted to show us the huge rattler he had just killed. We of course couldn't say much to each other as usual, but we managed with our few words of Spanish and his few words of English. For some reason I always break into signs whenever I try to speak to him, which probably make me look absolutely ridiculous. Just picture me flapping my arms trying to talk about the birds; you get the idea. Later that afternoon Christine was out in the back of our house taking a leek when she heard some movement next to her. Now there was a huge rattler right behind our house. Well, we tried everything in our power to obliterate it - torpedoing a shovel, hitting it with a stick, bowling stones from our fire pit - nothing seemed to do the job. The snake actually seemed to laugh at our attempts. Then both of us looked at one another and realized, "Jose!" So we hopped in the truck and booked it to find Jose. Then Jose and his wife (whom acted as the translator) high-tailed it back to the house to save us from death by venom. Oh, did I mention the rather large shotgun Jose equipped himself with. Well, stupidity stroke us once again... the snake was gone when we got there. One of us should have stayed to keep an eye on it. Jose might have not killed the huge rattler but he did kill the smaller one hidden behind a piece of tin where our pet rat resides. Today, when I was driving here, I ran into Artemeo and Jose all dressed up in their cowboys get-ups, getting ready to corale some cows. Artemeo, he loves to tell me about any scary things that happen, so of course he told me about the two horses that were bit by rattlesnakes just yesterday. Only one of them made it. Thank you Artemeo! I feel oh so safe. Well I think that is all I have for you. The next week I have a lot of paperwork to do, but thankfully we are only going to feed the falcons every other day so that will give me some time to complete it - and maybe even go site seeing. We heard that Carlsbad Caverns are a must. I love you all and can't wait to see you, which will hopefully be soon. No snake bites are going to happen to this chick! And that's a rap from Texas!