I’ve had all kinds of close encounters with snakes during my life. Years ago, I almost got bit by a rattlesnake that I temporarily mistook for a bull snake. When I was in the sixth grade, my sainted mom once killed a huge velvet-tail timber rattler on the steps of a rented home where we were living near the Osage River. I wuz just about to step outside when she saw the reptile through the screen door.
Another time, some elementary school friends and I stumbled into a bevy of little prairie rattlers and we exacted a fatal toll on the bunch without getting bit ourselves — which is a wonder.
And I actually stepped on a copperhead — while wearing rubber boots — while carrying a 22-rifle while hunting coyote pups and had to shoot it in the head with the rifle while standing on the snake.
Another time as a kid I watched a big bull snake knock down a big old possum that wasn’t paying attention to its surroundings. The snake wuz big enuf it upended the possum twice before that homely mammal recovered and ran off.
Several times I’ve grabbed black snakes by mistake in hens’ nests while gathering eggs. That gets my heart to thumping pretty quickly.
But last week I learned something about a snake that I’d never thought about before. How do snakes drink? Where do they drink? How often do they drink? Those thoughts never crossed my mind.
Well, now I think I have a partial answer to my snake drinking question. When I went into my henhouse to gather eggs a few evenings ago just before dusk, the first thing I spied was a big mature black snake with it’s head draped over the edge of a 4-inch rubber pan that I water my chickens in. It wasn’t moving, but I could tell from the gentle ripples around it’s mouth that it was apparently drinking. I couldn’t tell if it was lapping water or slurping water, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the snake was quenching it thirst after a hot day.
Unfortunately for the snake, it was upsetting my hens and it wuz within three feet of the eggs in the nests, so it paid the ultimate price for its poultry indiscretion.
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I’ve a retired veterinarian friend, Dr. Pilsan Shotts, who regularly eats at our weekly Old Boar’s Breakfast Club. Last week he related to me that he’s had a doe whitetail come into his yard recently and she had not one, not two, but triplet dappled fawns following her. I believe triplets are quite rare in whitetails.
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Last week brought the sad news of the passing of Gary Kilgore, the retired Kansas State University area agronomist for Southeast Kansas. Gary was one of the nicest, most professional fellows it was ever my privilege to call “friend.”
Gary was a walking/talking encyclopedia of all things related to crops, forages, soils, and farm/ranch management practices for southeast Kansas and beyond. Gary was utterly devoted to his family, his profession, his clientele, and to Kansas State University.
I think it’s safe to say that down through the years Gary Kilgore was featured in more FARM TALK articles that any other single human. He was a fixture at field days, conventions, county, area, state, and multi-state meetings — always dispensing good agronomic advice in his clear, consise manner.
Gary and I were such good friends that we regularly poked fun at each other in public meetings. I’ll always recall one such encounter fondly. It was a pasture/forage/grazing meeting held in northeast Oklahoma. I wuz the emcee for the meeting and Gary was the featured “guest” speaker.
When it came time to introduce Gary, I mentioned how both he and I were graduates of Kansas State University. And that we were significantly outnumbered at the meeting by folks with an affinity to Oklahoma State University. Gary smiled and heartily agreed that we K-Staters needed to stick together.
That’s when I sprang my prank on Gary. I was wearing a snap-button western shirt with an OSU T-shirt underneath it. So, I make the snaps pop as I yanked off my shirt and revealed my OSU shirt beneath it. I said, “Gary, you’re on a cultural island today because you forgot, I’ve got a degree from OSU, too.”
Of course, the crowd loved it and Gary accepted it in his typical good humor.
The second way I regularly had fun at Gary’s meetings wuz that I knew he got frustrated when repeatedly asked the question, “Can cheat grass turn into wheat?” That question irked him to no end, so I invariably managed to get it asked at all his wheat meetings. Again, he knew the source and just took it all in stride.
With Gary’s passing — with all the agronomic knowledge that he took with him — the crops are sure to be improved in the Great Garden in the Sky.”
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We had a big, fun family reunion on Nevah’s side of the family last Saturday in Yates Center, KS. I got to visit with extended family members that I hadn’t seen in years. I wuz good to get caught up-to-date with everyone.
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Words of wisdom for the week: “Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”
Have a good ‘un.
