Two things more... I forgot about the roots. Take them home, wash them thoroughly, and cut them into 1/2" pieces. Put them in a small pot of water, and boil them.
You will smell sarsaparilla. Yup. Just add sugar and you have root beer. Chill in an icy glass.
For the other thing I forgot... I used to do a Steve Irwin-level trick until Herself put her dainty foot down. She laid a cold, hard eye on me (which feels as disgusting as it sounds) and told me it was verboten.
The new guys at the hunt club would think the other members were pulling the long bow, and so I got dispensation from my beautiful Scottish witch that I could do it one more time while they filmed it.
The trick: Many years ago, I discovered something neato about rattlesnakes: Just a split-second (about 1/5 sec) before they strike, they do a sort of
frisson that you can see if you are
really watching carefully.
You really must concentrate, because your reaction time is about 1/3 sec, which puts you at a really nasty time deficit if you do not have that hand moving the heck outa Dodge before he gets his head moving!!
I am the only person I ever heard of that did this trick: I would kill rattlesnakes with my Swiss Army knife. TINS. Using nothing else.
Sooo... there is the buzzer. Yer Unca would sidle up to it until my right leg was juuuust out of range, but definitely noticed by the snake. Then I'd bring my left hand quickly into range from the other side and
yank it away again.
I'd do the approach-
yank thing until I saw the
frisson. That was my signal to swing my Swiss Army knife about a foot and a half in front of the snake as I drew my left hand away.
The knife would clock the buzzer right behind the head, and depending on the size, either kill or stun him. My largest rattler done thisaway weighed 22 pounds.
Here (I hope) is a still from the movie the guys made the very last time Herself let me do this. Note my left hand is blurred:
Now for:
"The Rest Of The Story" -- The prohibition came because I was late pulling my left hand away the penultimate time I did this. The rattler got the
top of my left hand with his bottom teeth, but I got my hand around his mouth before he could plant the uglies in me, and pulled him away. It wuz close. I guess I had lost a coupla hundredths of a second and it was time to retire.