Monday, January 28, 2008


"Sparky"
3" by 4"
Oil on Masonite








I've always loved snakes. I've been catching snakes since I was a very little girl.

My first book was 'Poisonous Creatures of the Desert Southwest' (I was born and spent the first seven years of my life in Tucson, Arizona) and I colored in the black and white photographs as I caught the critters in the book.

My Father was tickled to find me lecturing to some fellow tourists out of it on a trip to Mexico. I was six. It was over a velvet ant, which is actually a wingless wasp, and I remember it was bright magenta in color.

But rattlesnakes have always held a special place in my heart. I remember begging my Father to catch a sidewinder rather than kill it. He did, and I kept it for a week.

The first snake I caught in Texas was a rattlesnake. It had different markings than the ones we had in Arizona. I took it in the house to look it up and my Father made me take it back outside.

But my record is catching twelve rattlesnakes in an hour just south of San Antonio last year. I turned all of those loose.

David won't let me keep them in the house either. :(

Doesn't this guy look friendly? Look, he's wagging his tail! He just wants to be friends with you. . .

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