WISCONSIN RAPIDS TRIBUNE (Wisconsin) 26 July 07 A rattlesnake visits our Big Flats tree farm
I was recently doing some cleanup work around our tree farm cabin when a mink casually climbed the steps to the porch, nonchalantly walked across the porch and down the steps on the opposite side, one of the many wild animals we see at the tree farm.
This reminded me of an encounter with a different creature visiting the same porch a number of years ago.
We had had an early summer freeze, so I made a quick trip to the tree farm to look at the frozen candles or buds on the pine trees and to check out our outside pump. While walking past the cabin porch, I saw a good sized snake with only its head sticking out of the woodpile, obviously warming itself after the cold snap.
I gave the viper a lot of leeway and went about the task of checking out the pump. I returned to the porch a short while later, and as the snake wasn't visible, I gingerly tapped the edge of the woodpile with a long handled shovel. A very distinct buzzing or rattling noise came from the stack of wood.
I stayed a good distance from the cabin for a period of time and finally again carefully approached the woodpile, and again tapped the edge of it with the shovel.
There was no response, so I was finally able to enter the cabin to get the necessary tools to work on the pump. I guessed that the rattlesnake had slithered under the cabin which at that time was open.
I didn't see any field mice around the cabin for some time after this encounter and wondered if there was a connection. From the distinct markings, I figured that the snake was a massasauga which has since become almost non-existant in central Wisconsin. I was somewhat familiar with the rattlesnakes after working on a photo story about them in the town of Finley many years earlier where a farm was literally overrun with the creatures.
The farmers had a small dog that had the uncanny ability to smell and locate the rattlesnakes' den or "pit." One of the farmers used a pair of long blacksmith tongs to reach into the hole and pull out a live rattlesnake or two or three or more and put them in a large glass container for me to photograph. The farmers "generously" gave me a number of live snakes to take back with me, which I quickly donated to a biology teacher at a local high school.
Our tree farm rattler had taken up temporary residence in the woodpile which was located just under a bedroom window in the cabin. When my wife heard about the
incident, she said, "You won't get me near that cabin again."
I replied, "Not to worry, he was just an 'itinerant window viper' and now he's gone!"

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