OK, so we get some big rattlesnakes around here.

The video clip that I've stuck on this blog is of the 6-foot, 4-inch rattler I killed a few evenings ago as I was walking back down the lane to my house from my dad's barn. I ran back to the parents' house and dad was gracious enough to get me his short-barreled .12-gauge shotgun.

I put a load of number 8 shot into the side of the snake's head. It seems this summer has involved an awful lot of eradicating critters, and I might have apologized for eradicating yet another, mentioning how I do not enjoy it and so on, but you know, I really do enjoy it.

Being good to the land is my credo. However, if you are too good to Mother Nature out here in the chaparral, it simply takes over. If you trap rats, snakes, etc and turn them loose somewhere else, you don't stand a chance.

There is a certain amount of pushing back that comes with a country home, as people who've lived in the country know. Killing snakes under the trampoline, racoons in the attic, possums under the swing set, digging native flora up by the roots -- it's all part of just existing in a niche that we are entitled to cut out of the habitat.

Studies show that varied land use benefits wildlife tremendously. Living organically by not spraying chemical fertilizers and insecticides does too. So I hope God forgives me for taking shotgun, shovel and torch to his creation now and again (referencing Aldo Leopold).

Till next time, stay away from them rattlers, and I'll try and do likewise!