P.S.
We have killed 3 out of the 4 rattlers we saw on the place this summer. The last one we killed yesterday evening. We were walking down to the pond after watering "the Oaks". I turned off the electric fence and Lin and I were stepping over it when I spotted it about 5 ft from my feet. It didn't make a noise. It was straight out on the "road" to the pond. I had Lin keep an eye on it while I went back to the house pad to get the only weapon I could think of.... rebar!!
I came back and it was still in the same position. I then saw the better weapon... unused T-post. Armed with both I walked behind to get better angle to move in for the kill. When I "unknowingly" cast a shadow on it, the little bugger turned and started looking for me. OK that isn't true at all... maybe I was acting like I was sitting on it with my shadow, and then making obscene gestures with the rebar... I'll give you a sec... ... ... ...
Okay you with me... so at any rate I pissed it off. So as you know using the rebar meant I needed laser guided precise targeting, which I don't have.. So I set the rebar down and opted for the bigger T-post option. The T-post has a "spade" on the bottom to help it stand up. This spade was my machete. I made some barbaric sound ... Lin can probably remember how it sounded... and chopped at the head. Well I missed bigger than sh!t. The snake struck two times at the T-post... MAN DOWN!!! I picked up the rebar, then I heard the MATRIX sound in my head, went into slow-mo "bullet time" and came down on it... BAM right in the middle of the head. The snake turned 90 degrees away from me and struck again. Battleship sunk. Two more hits and he was done.
Here are a few pics. 4 rattlers and a button about 2 ft long.