All ‘dem Bones!
Dealing with Dead Stuff
It was a rainy morning at girls camp when a staff member brought it to my attention. “What are we going to do about the dead black snake over by the hen house?” is how I remember it going. It was a soggy July as per usual, and I recall thinking immediately what stage of decay it would be in, what or who killed it, if there was time in the schedule to use teachable moments (like the important role of fly and beetle larva) and on and on. I went over and inspected the corpse. Nice size black snake, torn apart by opportunistic predation of one sort or another, and definitely well on its way to full-blown-gross! I grabbed a small chicken cage from the pile, and used sticks to plop the slimy remains down into the cage. The twisted metal would keep out dogs, possum, weasel, and birds, but allow all the other decomposers in. I knew it’d be stinking to high heaven and covered in maggots in no time.
Anyone who grew up on a farm or close to the land will tell you, seeing dead things is: just a part of life. Births that don’t go according to plan, creatures getting stuck in a fence, mouse in the toilet water, or guarding your fowl, only to have a hawk come right out of the clear blue sky and rip a prize layer to shreds right before your eyes. Heck, even city folk are left with a big ol pile of bones after finishing off the hot rotisserie chicken from their local grocer. The question is, what do we DO with the stuff that’s left behind? Other than the die-hard homesteaders, or the back to the landers, not too many folks are out there, making bone-broth or God-forbid, sculpture. But knowing your land, your seasons and your nature-allies, truly gives one the upper hand. Some of our friends bury animal parts real specifically and intentionally in their orchard. But overall, a lot ends up in plastic garbage bags and landfills. In the case of the dead snake, and because it was July, what was left ended up in an art gallery in the little town of Boone, North Carolina.
With summer heat and active insects, the dead black snake transformed rapidly. Each day we had the educational spectacle that comes with the busy doings of nature’s decomposition allies. What was for a few days disgusting, stinky, putrid and very visceral, became in less than a week, a clean shiny white pile of ribs and vertebrae. With rubber gloves I went back to the rooster-cage and scooped up the bony remains in an old decommissioned black plastic coffee cup and set it on a rooftop, pretty much forgetting about it until the cold set in. A few months later, a peroxide and borax bath left them sparkling and new. An old forgotten toothbrush (after a dalliance with some good old-fashioned bleach) served as the final polishing implement.
There’s just something about using all the parts that motivates me to do stuff like this. There’s just something about watching, observing, and getting involved with the natural world that drives some of us to go beyond taxidermy. Dare I say… honor?
That ol’ egg-stealing blacksnake is still wiggling today with the help of some sterling silver, on some ladies neck bones. It feels good and right to be able to take something that could easily be perceived as yucky and making it beautiful again.
-Desere (Turtle Island Office Manager)
