Snake Skinnin' X 3

Elly May has been building up a collection of dead rattlesnakes in her freezer over the past year. They were mostly gifts from a friend (don't you wish you had a friend like that? ) who had run ins with them on the farm where he works or at home in a shed . Anyway, she gratefully accepted them all and stashed them away for when she had a spare moment to skin them out. That happened the other day. After a full morning of canning applesauce and running some errands, the snakes had defrosted and everything was ready. Oh... I should say.. again.. if you are squeamish you may as well stop right here because I know for a fact, you will not like the pictures in this post. Don't say I didn't warn you.

What are we doing?

The work table .

The specimens.

Exhibit A. He was a baby... and it looks like he killed himself.... hmm.... This one is kind of unusual because it still has its head. Normally we get ones without heads and sporting some wounds from things like hoes and shovels and so forth.

Mmm... ouch

This guy had been ready to shed ... so underneath his dull exterior was a brilliant green.

His skin was soooo thin and delicate. It was very hard to get it off without tearing. It did tear.. but most of it is still salvagable.

So pretty.

It looks like there is another snake laying down the center of the skin.

Fleshing...

Stapling to the board so it can cure.

Okay.. this is actually exhibit C... somewhere along the line I lost the one of B... hmm.. I'll find him later . This is a really large Red Diamond Back.

He suffered some... uh... blunt force trauma...

Slitting up the belly.

Just because I thought you might like to see inside..

Notice the drool laced over his face...

The big ones peel so easily.

We have some concerned onlookers.

This is actually fat deposits. I've never seen anything like this . At first we thought it was intestines but they aren't . If we could have found the blow torch we would have checked to see how well snake fat renders but alas.. we couldn't find the torch..

Another site of blunt force trauma... normally they aren't that bloody inside..

Just in case you were interested in what the innards of a snake looked like..

Fried snake anyone? Elly May said it looks like this dude had more meat than a squirrel. Of course that isn't really saying much..

Almost off..

Isn't it beautiful?

Laying out the skin..

What are you doing over there?

Fleshing..

This is what she is taking off . Just in case you were curious.

Just a change of scene in case you were getting squeamish.

Staples work much better than tacks... you just have to clean the stapler really well before you return it to your mom's desk drawer....

Painting on the tanning solution. Snake Tan.

Now in case you were still interested in the anatomy of a snake ... here is a quick peek.

This seems to be inside the trachea.. we think...

Snake heart. Kind of small... hmm.

Liver.

Empty snake... Sorry for the gore. I forgot to get a picture of all the skins drying on the board. Well, I'll get one when they are finished. They have to have a few more applications of the tanning solution. And they have to dry. But other than that... that is it. See, snake skinning isn't all that hard. ;-)

Morning Surprise

WARNING!!! if you are squeamish.. go no farther . Just as a courtesy.. .. I thought I'd tell you , you just might want to skip this one.









Okay. For those who aren't.. you can keep going. Elly May came into my room this morning and said there was a surprise for me in the basement. So I grabbed my camera... just so I was prepared ....
What is this??

An empty trap?

Oh..... ouch.

Well, I guess he won't be rustling any more oranges will he? How very decent of him to die right in the walk way where we could find him and not like a previous one who decided to kick the bucket somewhere in our walls where we got the joy of smelling his decomposing body for weeks. Apparently a horse fly was able to find him though because over the past week we've had giant horse flies just appearing all over in the house looking like they just hatched. Lovely. We know what they were walking on.

Makin' Marmalade .. Tangerine Style

With this vast excess of tangerines lying around from the tree massacre, Elly May decided she wanted to make marmalade out of them. She can eat all those delicious sugary things. The lucky dog.

They are so orange.

She was using the Ball Bluebook recipe for marmalade. Well, except for the tangerine part. That wasn't in the recipe. First she had to peel all the little dears.

And slice up the peel..

And the pulp part too. Only did you know tangerines have lots of little seeds (unlike those lovely navel oranges that the recipe probably called for....) and they had to be removed one by one. Oh the joy. She enjoyed every minute of it I'm sure. I think the lemons were easier. If only because there were fewer .

The whole lot goes into hot water, comes to a simmer and then gets to sit (turned off) overnight so you can sleep. (really, it does have to sit overnight, but what you do with your time is up to you... we chose sleeping) .

Then you add 3 tons of sugar to make the whole thing palatable and boil it to candy stage or something like that (she knows) . Then you get to put it in jars. If you think you are getting any vitamin C at all from marmalade , think again. Every last atom of the stuff is viciously murdered by boiling and sugar so I don't really think there is anything left but the orange color. But it tastes good and that is the whole point of this exercise anyway. So there.

All ready and waiting. Wasn't that nice of them?

More marmalade than we shall ever get through , or if we do we shall have some awful cavities. But hey, those tangerines did not go to waste. They have been embalmed with sugar.

It makes me think of Paddington Bear. He was always eating marmalade. It has such an English sound to it. Max de Winter had it on his toast in Rebecca.... but I think of Paddington more.

Making Sunshine

Over the years, trees around here have been growing pretty much unmolested. Well, occasionally they'd get whacked... but it has been a long long time since anything like that happened. They continued to get taller , and bigger .... and started to hog more and more sun from other things (like the garden) that really needed it. So it was time. After spending half the week in bed, I had a sort of alive feeling day and wanted to see how much of a dent Elly May and I could make on the avocado next to the garden. Of course the men folk were all gone and had taken all the saws with them. How very typical. So we asked a neighbor who is always around and he advised us against the old fashioned type of hand sawing and offered his electric chainsaw. Then, since he had nothing else to do that day , he offered to come out and take a look. You see, this is the way you get things done when you are feeling pathetically useless like I do . You start doing something way beyond your ability and hopefully, someone else sees it and decides you are going to do a lousy job or you are completely incapable or they want to be your hero and they take over. You just smile and profusely thank them and you can get all kinds of things done without actually having to do them yourself. This doesn't always work, but around here... I've had a lot of luck. ;-)
Anyway, I got waaaaay more done than I ever thought possible and all I did was drag branches. But that ended up being more than enough anyway because I've spent the past two days recovering. But I can look back and feel accomplished in the midst of my inactivity. Elly May did a lot .. she was lassoing branches and hopping around on roof tops and so on. Now we have lots more sunshine on the garden. And since he still had time , our neighbor did our tangerine tree too which had gotten way too big. We of course neglected to take any before shots.... but just imagine it about 6 feet taller. It'll grow back....
These came off the branches that got whacked. Well, not the lemons. Those came from the lemon tree. Duh.

Cover crop with lots of sun now..

The avocado with a severe hair cut.

And the tangerine , with only half its glory left. Like I said, it'll grow back .

All the trimmin's . Awaiting grinding up so they can be made into a massive compost pile. They have to dry out a bit first or they will jam the chipper.

It really didn't look like so much when it was on the tree...

The boys had a blast running off with sticks and branches which they shredded and played tug with and generally just made a mess with.

A tree we have no control over as it is in someone elses yard. Humph.

A bit blurry but he was so cute.

Now for some tangerine marmalade...... by Elly May.... all by her lonesome.