This is my post for #freewriters Saturday hosted by 
prompts
mass of bodies
all kinds of screwed up
pilgrimage
gridlock
unnecessary
high power lines
Yesterday my husband kept saying that he did not understand why the snake had big holes blown in it when they should have been small pellet holes. The meat was all kinds of screwed up. So today when he took the skin off of it he found the wadding that came out of the shotgun shell inside of the snake. This is why the holes were so big.
When he cleans a rattlesnake he starts on one side of the middle of the back and cuts along it leaving all of the rib bones in place. Then he will cut down the other side.
This way you have two pieces of boneless meat.
Next, he cleans all of the meat from the skin, he also cut away the blown-up parts and rolled them up to fit a mason jar filled with half rubbing alcohol and half glycerin. He leaves it in this for three days. Then he tacks it on a board to dry for two weeks.
I do not know anyone who has seen this many rattlesnakes in their yard other than us. I wonder if they make their pilgrimage across our yard. Or does it have something to do with the high power lines?
People get upset and tell me that it is unnecessary to kill them, but they are not in their yard where you have grandchildren and a dog.
I wonder how many mass of bodies of them there are. Out of the 9, my husband has killed, we would not have known 4 of them were anywhere around us. If not for our animals.
The first one he got was because the turkeys had something surrounded and were making a clicking sound. My husband went over to see what they were clicking at and a rattlesnake had himself in a gridlock in a piece of plastic fencing.
The second one was found by our rottweiler, he was on one side of the gate and the snake on the other. This picture is forever etched in my mind. The snake had its head sticking up about a foot and a half looking right at our dog. He would be dead if not for the gate.
Our granddaughter's dog that we have now has found the last two. It scares me at how close she has come to them. Yesterday my husband said he heard crashing on the edge of the woods and then she came running towards him, then he heard the rattling. Both of these were within 20 feet of our house and about 20 feet from each other.
All photos are mine