Family Fun w/Rattle Snakes!

We really wanted to get out today after meeting and enjoy this amazing weather. Running was out, so we took the kids for a hike near our home. We headed up into the Lime Ridge Open Space. We started off on a wide fire road, then found ourselves on single track. We have done many hikes with the kids. All hikes start off at the visitor board reading about the animals that are in the area. The kids know to stay close. We usually have one parent in the front, and one bringing up the rear. Well, today we were out of formation. The girls were up a ways in front of us. A sound you never want to hear, but especially when your kids are a ways up in front of you on a trail, is the rattle of a rattle snake. It is a very distinct sound, you know the instant you hear it what it is. It is also a bit disorienting. It is very hard to tell exactly where it's coming from unless you can see the snake of course. My first thought was run, which is what I hollered out for them to do. They did not run back towards us, they ran about 40 ft up the trail and stopped. So now they are on the opposite side of the snake from us. We either have to run by it, or they have to run back by it to get to us....neither of those options was happening.
I was wishing badly that my grandpa was here! He never hiked w/o being armed. He would have walked up to the sound and ....eliminated the threat. I once saw him pick up a hatchet and throw it end over end across camp and decapitate a rattle snake. I still have the rattles from it. But alas, grandpa wasn't going to be able to help us get out of this pickle. One thing I know about rattlers is they don't rattle until you are pretty close to them. They warn you when you are too close, but they are happier to sit still, watch you, and let you pass when you're not too close. Which told me he was close to the trail.
My amazing husband knew exactly what to do. Wait, I mean he had no stinking clue what to do, but neither did I. I did know that taking my shirt on and off over and over wasn't going to fix anything though : )
Thank goodness, I had the camera along and was calm enough to do the only thing I could do in the moment, make a video! Yes, my voice is way annoying, and yes, I was way annoyed by any suggestion Brian made, but my babies were in trouble, so I give myself a pardon. Thank goodness a man appeared in the middle of the woods and saved us! Good memories, and now Brian and the kids have heard the rattle of a real live rattle snake!

You can hear that the snake does calm down,but as soon as Brian would take a step down the trail he would start back up again.