C
Coach Hunt
Guest
LAST EDITED ON Feb-11-04 AT 11:18PM (MST)[p]hang in there, this is a true enough story, maybe stretched a mite by some cowboy, and it is rather lengthy.
Howdy,
I've been a good neighbor to a fellow who bought half of the old home place. He had asked for some assistance, so last Saturday seventeen cowboys, cowhands, on-lookers, and some other generally useless old men all met at the ranch for a fun filled day of fence building, junk moving, and just general sprucing up. The new neighbor?s name is ?Bob? and he is a pretty good cowboy. You can tell because he carried everything in his pickup that he could ?possibly? use. As I recall, there was a chainsaw, two grubbing hoes, three or four shovels, two rakes, an old cotton hoe or two, an oxyacetylene torch, a welding machine, and four or five other tool boxes filled with all the assorted tools that a rancher with a new place really needed. In addition to the various and sundry tools, he had a water can and a five gallon bucket of gasoline.
We had just gotten our chores laid out for us and gone to our various places when a friend of mine, J.T., drove up in his brand new pickup. He asked ?Bob? where he could be the most useful. ?Bob? asked him to drag off to the burning pile the old roof from the barn. That old roof had blown off sometime after 1930 and was mostly just a rotting and rusting pile of tin and timbers. J.T. tied a chain to his hitch, and to the roof, and off the roof went down the pasture road. To the horror of all the onlookers, there was a huge rattlesnake den under the roof. Literally thousands of ?battle-snakes? as my Dad calls them, were scrambling around looking for more protection from the cold. There were hundreds of holes and hiding places, but thousands of snakes. ?Bob? took one look and started seeing all those snakes loose on his new ranch during a work day. His eyeballs filled with dollar signs as he anticipated lawsuits from cowboys who couldn't handle getting away from a snake. With all this in mind, ?Bob? went to work!
The first thing ?Bob? did was to grab the five gallon can of gasoline, and proceed to pour out a circle of gas around the teeming throng of snakes. He was hoping to contain all the snakes in the old den until they could be killed by shotgun, fire, or some other equally deadly method. The only problem was, he sat the now half full gas can down right on top of the ring of gas he had just poured. He fumbled for a match, had to run back to the pickup for that, and in the meantime, the fumes from the gasoline seeped into all the hundreds of holes and hiding places. The snakes were getting sick, but were more than reluctant to crawl past the ring of gasoline. When ?Bob? returned with the dreaded match, he didn't notice where the gas can was. He just threw the lit match into the ring of gasoline. As the gas started to burn in a circular pattern, ?Bob? finally realized his mistake, and yelled at the top of his lungs ?Run for your lives!!!?
Most cowboys don't really run very well. Their boots are designed to fit in stirrups, not fit in a 100 meter sprint. So, it was comical to observe the ?good ole boys? floundering away from the impending doom. Upon reflection, I'm not sure that ?running? is an appropriate term for cowboys who think they are about to die; perhaps a better term is ?waddling.?
As the ring of fire hit the gasoline can, the most gosh awful eruption of fire and rattlesnakes the world has ever seen sped upwards of fifty feet into the air. Every one of us who were working in different locations heard the explosion, saw the ascending gas can and squirming writhing plethora of vipers, and we watched in horror as the can itself exploded at its apex of flight. Thus the title of this faithful report, ?the day it rained fire and rattlesnakes.?
Now, I wish that I could report that this was the end of the incident and all the world returned to the normal ranch life; however, such is not the case. As most of you know, this area has experienced the worst drought since the dust bowl era. As a result, every pasture within a 300 mile radius is tender dry. As the fire and snakes fell, the snakes were doused with the gasoline, set on fire, and sprinted for their lives as far into the pasture as possible. Each snake started its own range fire as it ?sped? away from the disaster.
Three local community fire departments, seventeen cowboys , cowhands, on-lookers, and some other generally useless old men desperately fought both fire and viper. I lost count at sixteen snakes and fires that I personally extinguished, and most other men reported similar numbers. Four and a half hours after the tin roof was moved, the fire trucks finally left. All of ?Bob?s? new ranch was reduced to ashes and cinders, and the only two things left were the few ?t? posts that had been driven into the parched soil in order to make a new fence, and one other item. As far as I know, the old tin roof never did make it to the burning pit, and you guessed it, it was the other thing that didn't burn.
Adios
Coach
Howdy,
I've been a good neighbor to a fellow who bought half of the old home place. He had asked for some assistance, so last Saturday seventeen cowboys, cowhands, on-lookers, and some other generally useless old men all met at the ranch for a fun filled day of fence building, junk moving, and just general sprucing up. The new neighbor?s name is ?Bob? and he is a pretty good cowboy. You can tell because he carried everything in his pickup that he could ?possibly? use. As I recall, there was a chainsaw, two grubbing hoes, three or four shovels, two rakes, an old cotton hoe or two, an oxyacetylene torch, a welding machine, and four or five other tool boxes filled with all the assorted tools that a rancher with a new place really needed. In addition to the various and sundry tools, he had a water can and a five gallon bucket of gasoline.
We had just gotten our chores laid out for us and gone to our various places when a friend of mine, J.T., drove up in his brand new pickup. He asked ?Bob? where he could be the most useful. ?Bob? asked him to drag off to the burning pile the old roof from the barn. That old roof had blown off sometime after 1930 and was mostly just a rotting and rusting pile of tin and timbers. J.T. tied a chain to his hitch, and to the roof, and off the roof went down the pasture road. To the horror of all the onlookers, there was a huge rattlesnake den under the roof. Literally thousands of ?battle-snakes? as my Dad calls them, were scrambling around looking for more protection from the cold. There were hundreds of holes and hiding places, but thousands of snakes. ?Bob? took one look and started seeing all those snakes loose on his new ranch during a work day. His eyeballs filled with dollar signs as he anticipated lawsuits from cowboys who couldn't handle getting away from a snake. With all this in mind, ?Bob? went to work!
The first thing ?Bob? did was to grab the five gallon can of gasoline, and proceed to pour out a circle of gas around the teeming throng of snakes. He was hoping to contain all the snakes in the old den until they could be killed by shotgun, fire, or some other equally deadly method. The only problem was, he sat the now half full gas can down right on top of the ring of gas he had just poured. He fumbled for a match, had to run back to the pickup for that, and in the meantime, the fumes from the gasoline seeped into all the hundreds of holes and hiding places. The snakes were getting sick, but were more than reluctant to crawl past the ring of gasoline. When ?Bob? returned with the dreaded match, he didn't notice where the gas can was. He just threw the lit match into the ring of gasoline. As the gas started to burn in a circular pattern, ?Bob? finally realized his mistake, and yelled at the top of his lungs ?Run for your lives!!!?
Most cowboys don't really run very well. Their boots are designed to fit in stirrups, not fit in a 100 meter sprint. So, it was comical to observe the ?good ole boys? floundering away from the impending doom. Upon reflection, I'm not sure that ?running? is an appropriate term for cowboys who think they are about to die; perhaps a better term is ?waddling.?
As the ring of fire hit the gasoline can, the most gosh awful eruption of fire and rattlesnakes the world has ever seen sped upwards of fifty feet into the air. Every one of us who were working in different locations heard the explosion, saw the ascending gas can and squirming writhing plethora of vipers, and we watched in horror as the can itself exploded at its apex of flight. Thus the title of this faithful report, ?the day it rained fire and rattlesnakes.?
Now, I wish that I could report that this was the end of the incident and all the world returned to the normal ranch life; however, such is not the case. As most of you know, this area has experienced the worst drought since the dust bowl era. As a result, every pasture within a 300 mile radius is tender dry. As the fire and snakes fell, the snakes were doused with the gasoline, set on fire, and sprinted for their lives as far into the pasture as possible. Each snake started its own range fire as it ?sped? away from the disaster.
Three local community fire departments, seventeen cowboys , cowhands, on-lookers, and some other generally useless old men desperately fought both fire and viper. I lost count at sixteen snakes and fires that I personally extinguished, and most other men reported similar numbers. Four and a half hours after the tin roof was moved, the fire trucks finally left. All of ?Bob?s? new ranch was reduced to ashes and cinders, and the only two things left were the few ?t? posts that had been driven into the parched soil in order to make a new fence, and one other item. As far as I know, the old tin roof never did make it to the burning pit, and you guessed it, it was the other thing that didn't burn.
Adios
Coach
