Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Snaky Birthday to Me!

When the “kids” arrived to surprise me for my birthday, they had another surprise: They had picked up a little ring-necked snake by our garage and put it in a little camping pot that was handy.

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By the time, I got my camera, it was ready to escape all the attention—and the pot. I asked to have the golden underbelly exposed for a picture.

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Pretty bright, huh?

So then he let it go.

After lunch, we went to show the “kids” the new garden.

On the way, out, we stopped to look at a big diamond-back rattler on the edge of the highway.

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It was dead.

Talk about your shovel-head….

Heads?

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Or tails?

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B measured it at 4 feet.

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So we went  on ----and in the middle of the black-top road was a second rattler. This one was about two feet long and alive---but not really moving.

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But once we were in the truck, B looked in the mirror before driving off and the view was sans snake: it had disappeared into the vegetation on the roadside.

So that was three snakes in one afternoon.

The following afternoon, after the “kids” had gone back to their lives in their other towns, B and I went for a ride down a state forest road. Coming around a corner we stopped to see a cottonmouth moccasin, sunning on the dirt road. As we watched, it started to move off the side of the road. I got no picture, but we were able to estimate this big one at three feet. It was certainly as wide as the first rattler we saw the previous day. 

So it is that time of year. No more flip-flops in the yard.

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