I recommend reading Desert Solitare, by Edward Albee.
Albee was the summer ranger at Arches National Monument, back before there were any paved roads there. The summer ranger lived in a trailer in the desert, with a single electric wire coming miles and miles to that trailer. The water system was a 55-gallon drum that had to be hauled into town and refilled.
One morning, Albee got up and sat on the front steps to put his boots on -- and saw a rattlesnake between his feet!
He managed to jerk his feet out of the way (it was still cold in the mornings and the snake was sluggish.) He got his boots on, jumped over the snake, went to the tool shed and got a shovel. Now, it's illegal to kill anything in a National Monument, and Albee was a committed Environmentalist. So he scooped up the snake, took him out into the desert a quarter of a mile and dumped him.
A couple of days later, as he was starting down the steps, he saw the snake again. He jumped over him, got the shovel, scooped him up and took him a mile into the desert.
A fewdays later, as he was starting down the steps, he saw the snake again. He jumped over him, got the shovel, and chopped the snake into little pieces.
The moral of this story is you can only cut a rattlesnake so much slack.