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Tip o' the Day

It has come to my attention, rather late in life I might add, that the most valuable commodity available to humans is information. And my limited observation tells me that's also true for most of what we consider the "higher order" of animals. Else why would bears return to the same meadows and swamps that contain the same succulent grasses and forbs in the spring? Or why would they return to the same high alpine basins where cutworm moth migrations can be found feeding on wildflower nectar in midsummer?

Elk, I've observed, learn through experience when bluebunch wheatgrass turns tasty, and where best it can be found. They've discovered the best migration routes, and how they can be altered depending on weather conditions.

We humans spend a great deal of time researching information: the price of wheat futures, developing plastics, and frantically searching for cures for multiplying diseases. I put much of my life into studying how a horse or a dog thinks. Dogs are easy, horses tougher.

I learned a bunch from Larry. He was a guy who cane to his maturity working around horses and mules used in the U.S. Forest Service. His mentors were the old horse and mule men from pre-World War II days. They taught Larry that it was useless to beat a stubborn mule with a stick, and Larry taught me. And he taught me the most important piece of information of all: that the way to get the best from your ponies is to get inside their heads and make them think they really want to do this thing you want them to do.

"Get inside their head," Larry said. "Find out what they're thinking, then shape that thinking until you're working as a team."

It's a good plan. A working horse has to work, just like a working man or woman. But he, like they, needn't be whipped or starved or abused. If you can share with them what's expected, maybe slip them a handful of oats as a treat, water them along the trail, and adjust their packs when they slip off center, that pony will do its best for you.

And here's another secret: their best is more than good enough -- maybe even better than yours!

Ethan Lester, the 13-year-old California lad turned into quite an email correspondent because he likes my Western novels wrote that he was grounded "again" -- which gave me a chance to share a little insight:

"Grounded, huh? Having been a teenage boy myself, and having raised a teenage boy and a teenage girl, I understand how such things happen -- though I'll never stoop so far as condoning the actions leading to it. At least your computer privileges weren'e taken from you, and that's something. Mine weren't either, but, then, computers had yet to be invented back in the stone age when I was a teenage guy.

"Incidentally, my teenage boy wasn't that much of a problem, and therefore wasn't grounded as often as his sister. The reason for it might've been because he was so interested in outdoors adventure that he spent most of his free time outdoors, as opposed to finding misadventures at school or downtown. There are seven stories about some of his adventures in my book about elk, The Phatom Ghost of Harriet Lou. He's presented in that book as being my grandson, but those seven stories scattered throughout that book is actually about our son, Marc, and his father (me). The first of those stories is the first chapter of that elk book -- which means you can also read that on my website.

"Now back to the grounding: I don't know why you were grounded, nor do I care. Just do your penance like a responsible guy should, then you'll be ungrounded. At that time, you should examine why you were grounded, and decide whether it was really worth it. Doing the right thing isn't a matter of whether or not you get caught, but a matter of living with yourself after doing the thing that caused your grounding. And yeah, I've done a thing or two during my life that I'm not so proud of. But I took my punishment like a man should and tried to do better next time -- not because I was afraid of punishment, but because there are right things to do and wrong things to do. Spending time on penance left me plenty of time to cogitate on which was which.

"Okay, you didn't ask for this, but I like you, so what the heck?"

THE SNAKEMAN

Chris Christensen teaches art at the Townsend Middle School. Chris is a mild-mannered, patient man of of broad-shouldered average height. He has an average family of son, daughter, and wife of pleasant disposition. There are a couple things about the Christensen family that makes them more-than-average. First is the love and respect they have for each other; second is the pleasant, smiling art teacher's fascination with snakes.

It's that fascination that takes Chris, in his spare time, onto rocky ridges and into narrow gullies of the Missouri River country north and east of Montana's State Capitol, at Helena (pronounced Helen-uh, not to be confused with Napoleon's deathplace on the island of Heleen-uh). Among those ridges and gullies, the mild-mannered art teacher strolls in search of what he considers "Valhalla" -- a rattlesnake den, or at least the occasional clattering whirr to widen the eyes and sharpen the reflexes. Chris's Valhalla differs considerably from the Valhalla of his Danish ancestors.

Known throughout much of Central Montana as "The Snakeman", Chris Christensen sometimes takes his snakes on the road, to schools, club programs, and demonstrations. He's popular, engaging, and, most of all, educational.

We met Chris at the Hidden Hollow Hideaway ranch of Kelly Flynn, an outfitter-friend from my long-ago guiding years. Our family was spending a few days at the ranch; while there, the Christensen family arrived to take a day's horseback ride. The difference between Chris's family and Roland's family was, while we were trying to avoid rattlesnakes, Chris couldn't resist looking for them. On the Christensen family's return to the ranchhouse, the mild art teacher apologized when he laid two huge rattlesnakes out at our feet. "I didn't have any way to carry a live snake on my horse." When the rest of my family crowded around, Chris added, "I'll tan their skins and use them for my classes to make leather goods from." Then he asked if we wished to visit his home that evening, when he planned to give his captured snakes a bath.

We were lucky. Our little family received a private performance from one of the most knowledgeable snake guys with whom I've discussed reptile captures. (Thus far, counting Chris, I've only chatted with one and not looking to add to my list.) The Snakeman had a couple of plastic garbage cans half-filled with water. To give his snakes both drink and bath, he would lift an individual rattler from one of the boxes he kept them in, then plop him into the water. If a spectator managed to screw up enough courage to approach, one would see the snake actually swimming around with his mouth open, drinking. Christensen said, "When they stop drinking and begin trying to climb out is time to put them back in their box."

There were perhaps twenty wooden boxes stacked one atop the other. Each was the size of beekeepers boxes. Each box had a secure clasp and screened air holes. Each contained five or six snakes. Most were rattleshakes, but some were garter snakes and bull snakes. One was a blue racer. Chris was wary of freeing the racer for an instant --even when dropped into the garbage pail, its head soon appeared over the lip, dropped to the ground, and raced away until the Snakeman chased and recaptured it.

One bullsnake had what the Snakeman called, "an attitude problem." Put him on the grass and he apparently thought he was a rattlesnake, for he coiled and vigorously shook his rattle-less tail. Move too close and the bull snake would strike. Chris laughed -- if I'd ran into the belligerent beast, he would've scared the hell out of me. Finally "The Snakeman" picked up the agressive bull snake and dropped him into his bathwater.

Christensen's snare is made from a four-foot section of a heavy fiberglass salmon rod. The rod has a three-inch finger-to-thumb clamp on its tip. The clamp is operated by a cable from a hand-grip on its butt. He reaches into a box of writhing angry snakes, clamps one behind its venomous head, then lifts it out and drops it into a garbage can. Some of the snakes were as large as Jane's wrist and four-feet long. I'm guessing that they weighed ten to fifteen pounds. Clamping and lifting one at the end of a four-foot fiberglass rod from deep inside a box would be difficult, even if it was docile. None were. One monster twisted and writhed so hard the muscles strained in both man and snake. The Snakeman's knuckles even turned white while gripping the rod with both hands.

Our family perched on hay bales laid out about fifteen feet from snakes and bathwater. Daughter Cheri was the perky one; the one who quickly accepted The Snakeman's offer to see his snakes. She gushed about the huge rattler that tried to twist from Christensen's grip, laughed at the bull snake who imitated a rattler, and cheered the blue racer on in his dash for freedom. Cheri was the one The Snakeman selected as his target as he reached into yet another box, then came up with a small, foot-long snake of undetermined origin that he could hardly hold! He grabbed wildly for the butt-end of his twisting rod with his second hand, lost control, then threw his arms into the air! The snake flew free -- right at Cheri. She screamed! Jane screamed! Cheri's husband grabbed for her! Then the snake landed in Cheri's lap. It was a rubber snake.

All in all, Christensen had 73 snakes (56 rattlesnakes) in his boxes, some waiting for shipment, others for a return to the wild.

Yes, The Snakeman does that, too.

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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