Life on the Desert, Memories From the Early 1900's

Life on the Desert, by Ethel H. Stewart Russell

            I was just a young girl when my folks filed on a homestead on the desert about fifteen miles south east of our home.  A house was built and a wind mill for furnishing water put in and then we moved out to clear the land and fence it.  There was 160 acres, much of it covered with mesquite trees, so it was a real job to get the land ready to grow crops.  The soil was very rich and when the rains came at the right season good crops were grown.

            One day while the boys were plowing they moved a pile of rocks and brush and found it to be a den of rattlesnakes.  We often saw snakes and had to constantly be on guard.

            The boys liked to hunt quail and doves or rabbits, sometimes they had target practice and let my sister and I try our skill which was good for us as we too had need to use the gun.

            There were a number of our friends who had homesteads near us, so we didn’t feel frightened when our folks went into town for a few days leaving us to care for the chickens and seeing the troughs were full of water for the stock.

            Late one afternoon as we left our yard going to the neighbors house, we had had a summer shower, and as we passed the wind mill great large brown hairy tarantulas were coming out from under the water tank for a stroll in the cool rain washed air.  They ambled along on their long legs as unconcerned as could be.  We took the gun with us and as we crossed the field a side winder came crawling over the furrows toward us.  I shot him and my sister said, "now we will kill another one before we go to bed”, and we sure did.

            On the way home that evening we circled the neighbors field to see if the creek had overflowed and as we passed a mesquite thicket a brown animal came out from the trees and followed us.  It was about the size of our dog but it had a more pointed nose.  When we stopped it stopped, finally it put it’s nose up into the air and gave such a strange cry it frightened us.  Old Shep, our collie, took off thru the pasture with us trailing him.  We were acquainted with coyotes which often awoke us in the still small hours of the morning with their mournful cry’s, but this was different.  Later we found it to be a timber wolf which sometimes came into the valley from the hills not far from us.

            Since we were alone when we got ready for bed I went to the porch to get the gun where I had left it as we came home that evening, and there, crawling along the porch to the coal-oil can in the corner, was the largest rattle snake I had ever seen.  We didn’t want him to get away so we sat down a short distance away to wait for him to come out from behind the can.  Finally, at about 2:30 a.m. it cautiously ventured out and as I raised my gun to shoot he coiled and I blew his head off with the old rifle.  He was near the edge of the porch, so we put a big anvil on top of him.  The folks came home the next day and they laughed at us for putting the anvil on him which resulted in a grease spot that defied all efforts to get it out.

            The old snakes measured 5 feet and had nine rattles and 2 buttons. 

            Many were the experiences we had those years on the home stead.  One night some one forgot to close the chicken house door and the hens made such a disturbance papa went out with the lantern to see the trouble and found a bob cat crouched in one of the nests.

            The quietude and the beautiful sunsets on the desert reflecting it’s rays on the mountains around us made us feel so near our Father in Heaven and made us grateful for the privileges we enjoy in this great country of ours.