25 | November | 2011 | Texas Tweeties by Bob Zeller

……….Her fleas were white as snow. 🙂

At breakfast this morning I ran into an old acquaintance. She remininced how she loved an old photograph of mine of a newborn lamb. I got to thinking that I have never posted it before. It really isn’t one of my best photos, but back then I really wasn’t into photography as seriously as I was to become later.

The photograph was taken about 15 years ago. I think I was using an old EOS 3. Anyway, a friend of mine, Ace Phinney, invited me to ride around his ranch with him. I thought it would be a chance to get some photos of some wildlife. We came upon one of his flocks of sheep. While he was scattering some feed, I roamed around amid the ewes and spotted this lamb standing apart from his mother. I liked the way he was backlit in the morning sun.

A little lamb

I had really hoped to see one of the large male rams, with the big curly horns. But there weren’t any big ones nearby. As far as any wildlife, while driving around in Ace’s truck we came across a huge Western Diamondback Rattle snake. The length of it was the whole width of the lane were driving on plus a couple feet. I would guess 8-9 feet in length. It also looked to be about 8 inches in diameter.

As it moved across in front of us, I swung my camera out the window to get a shot, but the rearview mirror was in the way. Ace brought the truck to a stop, and by then the snake was under a large mesquite bush. I jumped from the truck and ventured as close as I dared. I peered under the bush. I could see him coiled up and staring at me. I had a medium telephoto lens, I think about 28-200. I tried to get a shot but it was too dark under the branches to get a good exposure, even when I turned the flash on.

In the meantime, Ace was trying to run his truck into the bush, trying to dis-lodge the snake. But the bush was too big and strong for him to make much headway, but all of a sudden the snake slithered out and headed for some other deep brush in my direction, so I jumped into the truck, and we got the heck out of Dodge. A photo will have to wait for another time.

About six months later, Ace pulled up in front of our house in his truck. He called me out, and said he had something for me. In the back of the truck was a stinking gunny sack. In it was a head of a large ram, with a great curled horn. It had died of illness on his ranch. He had remembered that I wanted a photo, but also thought I’d like a souvenir.

Ann wasn’t too thrilled with it, and I didn’t really know what the heck I was going to do with it. For sure, it wasn’t going to sit in the garage for very long while I decided. So the next day, I took it to a taxidermist and had it cleaned up and mounted, so I could hang it on the wall.

"Old Roadkill"

I named it Old Roadkill. My weird sense of humor again. Below is a photo of a Diamondback Rattlesnake that I photographed in the Big Bend country. It is similar to the one that got the best of me, but quite a bit smaller.