I discovered the Waurika Rattlesnake Hunt last year and I wrote about it HERE. That post includes info on the entertainment there – both last year and this – you know –

James White & the Outlaw Handlers– Grandbury, Texas — Performing Feats Daring and Courageous in a pit filled with LIVE Rattlesnakes.

Actually, I don’t know if I would feel compelled to go if I lived close enough . . . When I was little and we would go to a zoo, I always wanted to visit the reptiles first. Was that because I was so frightened of them I wanted to get it over or because I wanted to look at something which could freeze me with terror.

I think the fact that they don’t have legs bothers me the most – the fast, fast slithering and the head and upper body being able to spring forward in the blink of an eye. I guess arms on a human could snap forward and punch me in the nose pretty fast, but I don’t think about that for some reason.

I can’t remember not knowing about the Rudyard Kipling stories of cobras and the days of ropes that could be pulled to summon servants and a murderer putting a poisonous shake through the hole in the wall so it could crawl down the rope and bite a sleeping person. See, I am upset enough to write run-on sentences again.

When my grandfather was farming and they cut and baled hay, my uncle said there would always be a rattler in one of the bails . . . that was his least favorite job on the farm – helping with the hay bales. Rattlesnakes are scarce here now – although a hundred years ago when my grandmother moved into a house by a lake, the family discovered a snake nest in the cellar. One big snake crawled up into a wall and stuck his head out a hole in that wall. My grandmother used a broom to keep hitting it back until someone came, got a shotgun and blew its head off. Wait a minute – they fired a shotgun in the house? That seems odd. Well, desperate times lead to desperate measures, I suppose.

Maybe I would be drawn to the festival as I am sometimes drawn to watch scary movies. I might have to duct tape myself to a wall for that weekend to keep me from going. Yet, I live in an old house with a fruit cellar – what if a snake gnawed a hole in the wall right where I was taped? Oh, Lordy!

Now I am thinking that these Oklahomans just go out around where they live and find these snakes for the roundup. So for me, if I lived there, every day would be snake day. I would buy a shotgun, maybe two . . . and wear boots . . . and not sit in the grass.

I am a wimp . . . or Indiana Jonesette – Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes? I hate snakes!

Now, gummy worms . . . they’re pretty cool.

I usually get on this site daily so that if someone who is blond with blue eyes and a former Marine gets it into his head to see what HIS MOTHER is doing, there will be something here to read that says,”Yes, YOUR MOTHER is here and thinking of you. As is your dog, SYDNEY. But yesterday I got sidetracked . . . but I am here now. Back. In the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse . . .

Okay, yesterday Der Bingle and I went to the local home show; it’s probably been going about 8-10 years now. It was sunny and a lot of people were there and some interesting vendors, including the one (CountryScapes and Gardens), from whom I purchased the planter accessory known as MooseHead that wound up on a Christmas tree

. . . as well as CatHead

and CowHead.

Der Bingle bought something for his apartment involving water; he asked me to say no more – I guess it is a surprise for Grover who sought sanctuary there following some “episodes” with Summer.

The Master Gardeners were there and giving out food made with herbs. We got in line and along with cake and cookies got a small cup of punch. I didn’t realize it at the time because in my haste to reach the food line, I had walked right by the sign that announced the theme of the presentation: Lavender and Old Lace.

The punch was pink – not hot pink, more like pink grapefruit pink. I tasted it and then asked, “What kind of punch is this?” The answer was Lavender Punch and I immediately thought, “Oh, my God, I’m drinking ground up little old ladies” – something I am very close to being myself. I didn’t care for it, but Der Bingle said it was okay, so I gave him mine.

The lady told me how it was made and I think Der Bingle paid attention. I was still thinking about the little old lady factor, which led me to thoughts of Zero Mostel in the original “The Producers” and how Colin Powell said that was his favorite movie and he loved the part about “little old lady land”. Did that sentence get a little long? Well, that makes it a typical AmeliaJake sentence, according to Der Bingle.

And when I went back to grab, MooseHead, CatHead and CowHead, I found this nice picture of Cameron from a year ago this month:

I like to see nice places and landscapes in movies and look at the people in  them and sometimes I will  imagine myself being in that setting. Then the other day I VISUALLY put myself in the sophisticated atmosphere of a movie and . . . I cringed.  It was like seeing a gnome among the movie star people. Thing is, I kept doing it – driven by some perverse compulsion. A gnome at a ball; a gnome as a socialite in New York; a gnome at a fancy hotel pool; a gnome on a sailboat.

I didn’t tell anybody – I didn’t want them imagining me in a movie scene and guffawing and snickering.

But then, this morning I opened my email and found one from Estee Lauder, one that announced – now brace yourself – Be a Bronze Goddess. This picture was included:

I suddenly saw my picture – my face – and, believe me, the effect was not the same.

One of my grandfathers was a farmer; he was born in 1877 and before he farmed a small place in Indiana, he travelled with a threshing crew. Somewhere there is a picture, which I need to scan into the computer, is of him on top of that machine with the crew gathered around it. Strangely enough, he was wearing a fedora.

One of my husband’s grandfathers was a farmer in Cathage, Illinois; he was  born in 1893. I remember him well. Tall, lanky, with a limp and a Will Rodgers look to him, he would come into the kitchen at lunchtime, hang his hat by his wife’s and ask me with a wry grin, “Do you think they’ll fight?” That first lunch, he poured my iced tea and said, “Say when . . . say when . . . say when; finally, I undersood and yelled “When” and he chuckled.

LZP found this picture of them on their wedding day and I’ve posted it once before, but it is worth posting again – Lydia Akers and William A. Vance:

So what got me thinking about farming? Well, it was LZP himself who sent me these photos of some FUI incidents (Farming Under the Influence). He asked this question: What would Grandpa have thought?