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A rattlesnake was the last thing my wife and I expected to find when we drove to Green Valley Sunday to make certain a townhouse we own there was ready for tenants arriving on New Year's Day. But that's exactly what we found. It was coiled under a Mexican clay pot we use to hold a garden hose. My wife didn't immediately recognize what it was when she picked up one side of the pot and reached down to pick up the strange-looking round shape under it. Two things were in her favor, thank God: 1. She saw the snake's head and scales in time and jumped back before it could strike. 2. It was a very cold day and the snake was dormant. When the firefighter who responded to her 911 call picked up the coiled snake with tongs the snake didn't wriggle. It was very much alive, though. If the day had been warmer, it would have bitten my wife. Our townhouse is in a highly developed area. To reach it from the nearest unoccupied desert land, it had to crawl at least 200 yards over concrete and pavement. There are no pack rats or field mice near the place that I know of. We do have a pyracantha hedge whose berries are attracting a lot of small birds now, so that may have been what brought the snake to our place. The incident makes me wonder how many rattlers were dangerously close to me when I've sat down on rock piles to glass during winter hunts. Bill Quimby