Mohave and Blacktailed Rattlesnakes

OK, here are some more rattlesnake pictures. We've seen a lot of them this summer, I assume because the rains have bred lots of mice and lizards for them to feed on.

Anyway, this first picture is probably the most interesting. My wife discovered this three foot long snake about dusk on the concrete slab in one of the rooms of her parents' partially completed home (they are also building down here). I lifted it up with a stick and dropped it into a plastic barrel (with lid), then drove about a mile away to release it. It had markings I hadn't seen before, so I took some pictures of it as I released it and then looked it up on the internet when I got home. It turns out that having white bands that much wider than the black bands on its tail identify it as a Mojave Rattlesnake, supposedly the most dangerous rattlesnake in The United States. Most rattlesnake venoms cause tissue degeneration, but the venom from a Mojave Rattlesnake is a neuro-toxin. It causes brain and spinal cord damage, and victims often die of suffocation if not treated soon.

And yes ... this area turns out to be part of the normal territory of the Mojave Rattlesnake.

And this picture shows another Blacktailed Rattlesnake, which seems to be the most common variety in our neighborhood. They are fairly passive and actually quite pretty, but this particular snake was the largest Blacktailed Rattlesnake we've seen and it was only fifteen feet outside the dining room window of our new house. I estimated it to be four feet long. Again, I loaded it into the barrel and relocated it a couple hundred yards away, taking some pictures of it as it crawled up onto a rock.

Green Hillside

The summer monsoon rains have really made the hillside green this year. I haven't seen it this lush in quite a while. Here is a picture of our paritally completed house from the road further down the hill. I'm afraid it may look this way for a while, since it probably won't get stucco'd until we get enough things finished on the inside for us to be able to move in. The house is watertight as it is right now, but I won't rest easy until the stucco is on.



This is Thompson Peak. It is almost directly above our house to the west, although this picture was taken from several hundred yards south of our lot. It is really pretty to hike in the ravines and along these ridges, especially after all the rain we've had.

Sunflower Yucca

Who said plants can't grow well in dry, alkalai soil. Take a look at this huge sunflower that
grew on our lot. We're going to submit it to the Guinness Book of World Records.

OK, not really. This is the underside of a dead yucca plant (Spanish Bayonet, I think) that
Alice found while helping Eric clean up dead brush on the lot. Sure looks like a sunflower,
though, doesn't it?

Cluster of Bees

My wife discovered this cluster of bees on the side of the large ravine that runs across our property. The dirt wall was vertical and the cluster was about 14 inches long from top to bottom. The bees are stacked one on top of another to a thickness of about three inches.

The bees were very passive with only a few of them flying around, but the ones on the outside were moving slightly. I thought possibly they were trying to keep a queen warm or something, except that it wasn't a particularly chilly day. They were gone the next day and left no trace that they had been there.

Harley-Davidson Club

My sister and her husband belong to a Harley-Davidson club in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their local dealer arranged a trip to Phoenix where he transported the bikes while the club members came out by plane. The weather north of Phoenix was wet and cold, so several of them decided to come down here and see our little building project.

It was great to see my sister and her husband, and the rest of her gang were awfully nice folks as well. A couple of them thought we were crazy to tackle this house by ourselves, but then we weren't the ones riding through cowboy country all dressed up in black leather pajamas.

Ringtailed Cat, Christmas Parade, and Palominas Drum and Drill Team (18)

One of our neighbors dropped by recently to show us this picture of a Ringtailed Cat that had apparently been chased by her dog onto part of her house. It appears to be a young one, and it stayed up there all day before slipping away after dark. They are known to live in the mountains down here but aren't often seen during the day, so I scanned the picture and added it here.

Once again we all went out to watch the local Palominas Christmas Parade. Anyone and anything is pretty much allowed to march in it, as you can no doubt tell. Old equipment is always well represented. The machine below is a 1949 Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor.

Two years ago the parade included the "Palominas Drum and Drill Team", but for some reason it was missing last year. To the great joy and relief of everyone it returned this year in all its glory, although the temporary absence seemed to have diminished the discipline and precision of the members a bit, if not their enthusiasm.



In case the picture doesn't show it well, those are hand drills they are carrying.

Palm Nailer

We were originally planning to buy a framing nailer for the interior walls, but a suggestion by a friend of mine caused us to go with a palm nailer instead. It has turned out to be one of the best decisions we've made, as the palm nailer is quick, easy to use, and very versatile. The nailer handles a wide variety of nail sizes interchangeably (we've been using mostly 10D's and 16D's), and it gets into some really tight spaces that a framing nailer or a normal hammer wouldn't be able to even get near. It can be used with either hand, which really helps sometimes when you're up at the top of a ladder and need to get to an awkward spot.

Some palm nailers drive nails with a single powerful stroke, but his particular model uses lots of really short, sharp strokes. This seems to give better control, particularly when toenailing. The model we bought (we actually bought two of them) is made by Porter-Cable and was the highest rated of the brands we could find. It has held up excellently.

The DeWalt compressor is a standard 4-gallon, 2.5 horsepower model and it more than keeps up with the nailer. It's a heavy sucker, though, and I'm getting tired of lugging it back and forth at the beginning and end of each work day.



Addendum: We (just my wife and I) finished the framing all of the interior walls of the house in about three weeks. It was a piece of cake, thanks to these two tools (plus a saw, of course).