Snake Sitting.
(Wrangling, too.)
My husband and I have come upon several rattlesnakes this summer. One sunned itself languorously on a sun-baked, barely-traveled dirt road above our canyon. Another steadily snaked across a narrow spot of one of our favorite trails across town.
We live in Northern California. We share our land with many animals, many snakes. Rattlers happen.
It wasn’t until today though, that I heard the sound a rattler’s rattle makes when it rattles…
Tsz, tsz, tszz – like lawn sprinklers casting lacy circles of cool water on carpets of summer green (or my little swimsuited self) in childhood.
Tsz, tsz, tszz – like the evening canvas of cicada song that seemed to blanket the moonlit fields of my grandfather’s farm in Ohio.
photo credit: Jon Beck, © 2026.
Today we discovered a Northern Pacific rattlesnake, a large one, who made its home under a small woodpile on our driveway. We called Animal Control, and for nearly two hours we waited: snake-watching the woodpile, the driveway and the small gap below the neighbor’s fence where the snake could decide to escape if it wanted. A white truck finally drove up. Here was our snake wrangler, a rather young woman wearing precious little protective gear besides thick, wrist-length gloves and polyester county-employee uniform pants.
She assessed the snake and its temporary habitat, scrunching very low to peer at the snake eye-to-eye from a distance (not long enough! I thought) across the driveway. She pulled equipment from her truck and she and my husband got to work. She lifted boards (carefully). She studied the snake for a moment, then used her long grabber stick to grab. The snake dangled in the air, and its rattle rattled: tsz, tsz, tsz – a pizzicato so singular, fast and eeire! We watched as our animal catcher dropped the rattlesnake into a 10-gallon bucket with holes punched in the top for air.
Hurrah! I whispered excitedly (but only after the lid was snapped shut on the bucket). Before our young snake catcher drove away, she posed for a photograph next to her truck (I asked), and she shared with us a few interesting things.
First, our stop was her second snake call that morning. Her first task had been to trap and catch a baby rattler.
Second, this “catch” just now? With our snake? She told us that this morning’s experience on our driveway was her very first, solo Adult Rattlesnake Wrangle. She’d been training for awhile, but today was the first time she’d wrangled a rattler all on her own.
My husband and I watched as she angled her truck out of our driveway and started down the road. We waved, perhaps waving away the moment as well as the woman and the rattlesnake, waving as she drove off to re-home the snake in a wild place not far from here, but wild—wilder than this.