On the tractor is not my most desired spot to see my place and the thistles that have been so carefully watered and fertilized. I find myself having a killer instinct when I am mowing the nasty things to the ground. I enjoy the sight of them turning yellow in the pasture, knowing I have done them in. It is with great delight I look back and see none of the noxious weeds in the wake of my brush hog!

There are a few other things I like to kill. I walked the pipe corral yesterday with a can of gasoline and sprayed all the openings to kill the wasps. My close relative gets stung a couple times a year because of her flower gardens and the water she leaves standing. I do not take a sting as well as she does,makes me sorta sick to my stomach and mad as a hornet! Therefore I try to go on a wasp hunt every so often.

And the venom carriers are not only waspers; yellow jackets and ants also sting if given a chance. I kill them all if I can find them before they find me. I sure dislike the little ants that will go to extremes to get to anything,living or dead. They go up and down the wire that holds the hummingbird feeders and into all the sweet feed in the barn.

I do not like creepy snakes, have been known to make new doors in the barn when one falls out of the rafters and run and scream like a girl! Ain’t that a pitiful sight, a grown man acting like that? I have nothing to guarantee the absence of snakes. I found some granules in a store that said they would deter snakes but the feller in charge didn’t believe it would really work. I can’t believe America can put a man on the moon but we have nothing to keep snakes off our land.

I was mowing the weeds behind the barn and hit something that sounded terrible. Not the sound of blades hitting rocks, but sorta squishy and disgusting. Looking back I saw neatly cut pieces of snake flying; some pieces were still wiggling when hitting the path. I made a beeline for the shed, put the mower away and went to the house for some iced tea. Would I ever tell why I didn’t finish mowing the weed patch? Of course, I would. I was so close to running out of fuel I decided to take a break before going into town to fill the can. It is hard on machinery to let it run completely out of fuel!

I can’t kill dogs or cats. I have to take them to the pound and pay for that sickening deed to be done. I won’t haul them off to starve to death and seeing a dog waiting for someone to come back is a heart-wrenching scene.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, John Wayne said it right when asked if he ever killed anyone. He said he only killed what needed killing and that is the way it was then. Now we protect life to the ultimate degree, even little green snakes.Well, I said we, and I meant the government, not me. Lions and elephants, all the beasts that don’t crawl and speak of wisdom to our women folk, I believe should be protected.

My killer instinct is satisfied pretty easily, but my yellow streak is always on the alert. I can outrun any crawly critter at any time, day or night! I would like to see some billboards stating, “Help stamp out stinging nuisances and snakes,” but PETA would almost certainly object.

You can help, step on ants, spray wasps and kill snakes! I will be forever grateful!

Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 05/18/2011