quote:

Originally posted by armored:
Many years ago when I worked as a commercial photographer I had an ad to shoot for Gabriel shock absorbers.
We flew to Midland TX to photograph Al Unsers winning Indy car (sponsored by Gabriel) for the ad. We went to Jim Halls Rattlesnake raceway and Jim Halls race car building compound.
All I can remember from the trip there was how wonderful Jim Hall was, How HOT it was, and ALL the signs posted around the compound to watch for rattle snakes, and the snake bite kits hung in each building.
It sure got the attention of this Chicago guy!

I grew up in the Upper Midwest. My first time being in Texas was Midland. We managed to have every poisonous Texas species in our construction office/warehouse (rattlers thanks to hiding in pallets) excluding the water moccasin.

One construction project, our excavator operator managed to dig into a rattler den and there were countless pissed off rattlers.

We sold one facility to a competitor, and we had been there for decades so there was a lot of abandoned conduit in the ground and the conduit was large diameter due to some of the electric needs of some of our pumps. During the transition period where both companies had access, one of my coworkers showed up and found one of the competitors employees on the roof of his truck with an empty revolver. The genius had decided that he would smoke some rattlers out of the conduit and shoot them when they came out. A hell of a lot more than 6 came out and they were pissed off so he found high ground. This was a facility closer to Sweetwater (the location of world's largest rattle snake round-up), and that facility was not blessed with king snakes.

Both of the above really made me appreciate the work the king snakes did on the 500 acres my office was located at. Still had to look out for rattlers (darn delivery drivers) but those king snakes were given wide berth so they didn't get mad and relocate. Too bad king snakes didn't eat scorpions because we had those little bastards too.