I'm "rattled," to say the least

This morning was the first time I had been out to the woodpile since we returned from Atlanta. Not surprisingly, Hurricane Hanna's winds had ripped the poorly-secured tarp right off the pile. I saw that the wood was pretty well soaked, but not overly concerned, since it will be dried through and through by the heart of winter. But a sudden discovery snatched my attention away. I've heard many tales of how flooding brings out snakes and other creepy crawlers from their comfy hiding places, but I was rather shocked to find a tattered snakeskin alongside these rattlesnake rattles. Shocked for two reasons: although we have seen numerous snakes on our property over the years, we had never seen a poisonous one on our land. We had seen a dead baby copperhead very nearby and neighbors had killed a LARGE copperhead when moving old lumber a few years ago, 50 yards from our property line. But there have been many disputes about whether rattlesnakes still inhabit Moore County. Some wildlife officials will say "No." Surveyors, farmers, and woodsmen however, almost uniformly have some first-hand anecdotes of rattlers. The only time I've seen one in the wild was on a campout at Stamey Shoals, near Camp Cherokee in Georgia. And I've expected to see a rattler in out-of-the-way places like Virginia's Sharptop Mountain and some of the North Carolina waterfall country we recently toured. Three varieties of rattler are native to our state. But in my own backyard? A little unnerving. Granted, the size and number of these rattles does not necessarily indicate an old or huge specimen. Contrary to popular lore, rattlers do not grow one new rattle each year. They gain a rattle each time they shed, which can vary to two or three times a year. The number of rattles doesn't accurately guage the age, as some rattles break off naturally, as when shedding (that may have been what happened here). But I have little doubt that these rattles came from a full-grown timber rattler between 4 and 6 feet long, which would rival the dead water moccasin that stretched nearly halfway across the nearby Taylortown road some years ago. I'm going to hope that this snake was displaced by the storm and was passing through our neck of the woods not by design or choice (like the black bears this summer), and is now long gone. Herpetologists consider rattlers shy though deadly, but I wouldn't want to surprise one at the woodpile--no matter how much he deserves it!