The snakes are crawling

The rise of Beasts

The snakes are crawling

Of hitches, conures, shoulder bands, and loving flies

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Leonard has been sick so it has been me and the iron horse the last several days.

The water storage at our Monterrey Well has been drained and repairs have been underway so it can be refilled before rotating cattle arrive. We poured concrete around the base last week and I was trying to finish an internal protective coating to extend the life of the old water storage built in 1940. I shot the inside with a nasty asphalt paint and was proceeding to shoot the outside with our color preference when Matt Matsler arrived. He had come out to check on Leonard and was making a water run at his request when he found me.

I was cussing the airless sprayer.

Matt helped me make several moves around the tank and was in the process of leaving when we saw the snake. He was 60 yards away when we spotted him. He stretched nearly half the width of the county road coming by the well and corral. He was going somewhere in a hurry.

Matt stopped to look at him as he drove away. The snake proceeded on his journey and I went back to work. We protect bull snakes and welcome their presence.

Rattlesnakes are another matter. After the subzero freeze of 2011, rattlesnake encounters dropped significantly. From an average of 55 or 60 a year, the number dropped to eight the summer of 2011 and recovered stepwise to about two dozen last summer. This spring has been an indicator that things might be changing yet more. A total of five have already been encountered and they have been big snakes. One of them might be as big as any snake we have ever seen on the ranch. Two big snakes were also seen at Alamo Basin with one of them having 13 rattles and a button. Another snake Leonard found coming off the divide above the Homestead rivaled the big snake.

This has all taken place with morning temperatures in the low ‘40s with one morning dropping below 27 that nipped grapevines, Leonard’s garden sets, and the pecans at the headquarters. It was cold.

In any case, the Crotalus sightings suggest it is again time to hang the felts and start wearing summer straws. That will last, of course, until the next big wind.

Then, it will be time to remember why felt hats are appropriate … regardless of season.

            Back to Henry

            I continue to be amazed at how little we learned in American history.

            Tell me your high school version of Ms. Strackbein taught you about Federalists andAnti-federalists and I’ll put Cholula on one of my straw hats and eat it. We never learned the real story, but we were served up canned rhetoric as if it was packed off the mountain engraved in stone.

            Yes, I continue to study Patrick Henry.

            He was one of the Anti-federalists that didn’t trust big government. In his scarlet cape and black suit, he would take the floor and confound the opposition with his logic and his forceful arguments. His stance on states’ rights stood in stark juxtaposition to the Federalists led by Hamilton, Madison, and Washington.

            “Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bound … guard jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel,” he counseled.

            He didn’t trust the coronation of a federal government that posed a threat to the states. He didn’t trust monarchs regardless how they arrived. And, he wouldn’t support a Constitution that left the citizen out of the pillars of its foundation. The words he trusted were his own, and those that remain in record are haunting reminders of his distrust for any federalized government.

            As one of the big states, his home state of Virginia was critical to the ratification of the Constitution. His influence was key to its success or failure. In fact, his influence was so profound that Hamilton and Madison exchanged letters urging the prayerful need for his earthly departure.

In the end, Madison’s influence and campaign for ratification succeeded. The fear Henry had has come to fruition. It was justified. The bureaus and federal Privy Council agencies created by the ruling monarchs of the federal government long ago arrived and helped diminish the influence of the states.

In fact, it was the states he held in such high regard and referenced when he spoke … “United we stand, divided we fall, let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”

That brings us to Henry’s most famous quote. If he were alive today, would he change a single word in the phrase of which we were incorrectly taught as being implicit in the constitutional process?

His words were … “Give me Liberty or give me death!”

Of hitches, conures, shoulder bands, and loving flies

The current crop of Crotalus, rattlesnakes for you city folks, isn’t all that will require watchful vigilance as the weather warms. A whole ark of esoteric species is hitting the endangered charts this summer.

In her quest to maintain surveillance of the Federal Register and its unexpected threats to lingering liberty of folks who have to use natural resources, Rachel sent a summary of ten new species being swept along in the endangered species avalanche and expanding fiefdom this week. In the announcement of 90 day findings of various petitions to list eight new species, reclassify one, and delist one more, the public is again told that actions provided by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are fully warranted.

The list includes species that school children will likely be told have equal rights to their existence. It includes the clear lake hitch, the Egyptian tortoise, the long-tailed chinchilla, the golden conure, the Mojave shoulder band snail, the northern spotted owl, the relict dace, the San Joaquin Valley giant flower loving fly, the western pond turtle, and the yellow cedar. In addition to those organisms, the Center for Biological Diversity announced its intention to sue over climate change threats to another natural wonder, the glacier stonefly.

Hold on just a second another announcement just arrived … Hmmm.

Well, okay, it seems the glacier stonefly has more company. The latest report this hour serves notice to reset the habitat footprint for the blue headed Zuni sucker. That must be what Piscado Creek must claim as a fish when it has enough water to flow by the quaint village of Ramah, New Mexico.

The rise and care of Beasts

Does anyone not think that Patrick Henry would be floored if he learned of the stranglehold of ESA? Likewise, how would he react to the colossal danger the network of federal agencies now poses to the Union? His take might be like so many of us. Not only have the promises of basic liberty been undermined, but the American experiment is in jeopardy.

We continue to try to act objective and adult about our plight while the tyrannical forces around us expand and become more powerful. There is no comparison to this debacle and what the Federalist or Anti-federalist actually debated 232 years ago. The thing they agreed upon was that the proper role of government was to scrutinize and govern the state of the citizen. What they disagreed upon was the center stage for proper governance. In that matter, Henry’s demand to avoid centralized power seems to be correct.

His warning continued, “It is natural for man to indulge in the illusion of hope and pride. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren (federalism) till she transforms us into beasts.”

Like it or not the Hamilton, Madison, and Washington’s promises of checks and balances have become false promises. Ultimately, the federalist siren lured us into modern calamity and the jewel of liberty was ransacked. The independent citizen has been extracted from the model and, in his place … the greatest body of governing elite in the history of the world has emerged.

Today, we are going to get our hands dirty again.

We are rebuilding a loading chute in order to handle cattle with more ease. Our concern is for both the cultured beasts of our charge and ourselves. As ranchers, we stand in the spotlight and criticism has become part of the package. We know it all too well.

Like Henry, though, we trust our words more than a body of bureaucrats who make qualitative assessments of our existence. As we go about our day, our attention will be directed at our work, but … we will guard jealous attention toward the snakes that might harm us.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “I am not paranoid about rattlesnakes, but … I don’t like them.”