Let’s Not Over Think This Now
How about I just post the pictures in the order that I took them? I can not believe, no, scratch that, of course I can believe how much brain time I devoted to this issue of how and what order to post these benches in. Who cares? Doesn’t matter. We didn’t walk in any particular order. They are not arranged in any particular order. (I don’t think anyway). So what difference does it make how you see them? It’s all the same theme. My head hurts. And it doesn’t even have to. Oh well. The other post had the dragon bench. This is, above, Thumbelina’s Garden. Pretty sure. Below is, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. That makes 3 posted.
I will keep going as time permits today. I have laundry and one more, last graduation party to attend, for the season. I also have Zoo pictures! And I finally bit the bullet and got back on that motorcycle that has been mocking me in the garage for over a year. I rode. I did a wheel screeching, head turning, back end wiggling, burn out, when the bike stopped dead in it’s tracks after I killed it coming up to a stoplight. I stayed upright. I did not poop in my pants. Or just drop that bike where it stood and said, “Done.” I started it back up. Gave a little wave to all the people on all the corners. (A lot of people. Damn kids and adults, fund raising all over the suburbs today. Watching me re-learn this skill.) Thanked the heavens above that no one was behind me, and rode off into the sunlight. Real cool-like. I almost gave the BF a heart attack. I probably had a small one myself and will now live 2 years less, but what do they say? Live to Ride, Ride to Die? Something like that. I had my helmet on and jeans and thick shoes. I would have been fine. In fact, I feel better than fine. I almost, almost, felt comfy. And I’m not afraid this year. For whatever reason. That I will not be thinking about in any detail. At all. The throttle is way too high and it feels like it’s trying to leap forward every second I don’t have the brake on, but that’s the fun right? And I didn’t fall. This post may have gone in a whole different direction if I had been laying on the pavement trying to get the bike off my shaking, scratched up, burned up legs. Anyway, I’m going to take a picture as soon as the BF brings the bike back from his, “blow-out-the-old-gas-get-the-engine-moving-again-so-we-don’t-have-to-keep-the-choke-full-on-to-prevent-the-bike-from-dying-when-we-stop” ride. In the meantime, let’s put up one more bench. It’s like, Super Saturday! Here is, A Stroll In The Woods. I think. I’m not really sure. It’s Snow White, at any rate. And not my favorite. But here it is. That makes 4/20. Later.
Classic Bunny Pose. Right Before We Fed Him To Our New Pet, The Snake.
Just kidding. However, we do actually have 2 little baby bunnies that seemed to survive the nest we found a few weeks back. Looked like 4 inside, but we only see 2 every day now. Oh? You don’t want to hear about these bunnies? What happened to the snake? Well, I’ll tell ya.
The snake survived fine, overnight, in the pillowcase, the first night into Sunday. We had discussions with family about who to call, what to do, where the snake should go, blah blah blah. We had some nature preserve ideas, natural habitat locations, and I did more research on the internet to find a decent solution we could all live with. We had a pretty good plan in place, but when we woke up Monday morning, it seemed that nature was going to decide for us. The pillowcase was wet, but only in a certain spot, as if something tried to attack it and either the snake was now dead, or it defended itself and released liquids of some defensive sort. I don’t really know enough so I thought, dead. I got gloves, cause, ewww, and when I picked up the bag to untie the cord the snake was rattling and angry. But alive. So we let it out nice and slow like they say to, and it calmed right down. I was able to hold it and inspect it and it looked OK. But, it definitely could not stay in a pillowcase, inside of a plastic tub, in a backyard, for anymore days or nights. Based on more research and a few phone calls, the best course was to let it go in its closest natural habitat. The snake is one of our Illinois snakes, and it is considered mostly passive as far as wild snakes go. And they move around at night in the summer. So, maybe it just got really lost. We have, well, let me say, we had, a wild, wooded area right at the end of our block-set mere weeks ago. But after several episodes of flooding, the town, or county, or whoever, leveled all the trees, bushes, grass, etc., and created a retention/detention pond-type area. It was quite dense and wild. It had coyotes. We saw them over the winter. At any rate, they’re all gone now. The land is flat and I’m sure the animals that didn’t get killed outright, moved themselves out asap. And maybe our little friend finally worked her way over to our backyard looking for shelter. Or she was just passing through and just wasn’t fast enough. OR. She’s been hanging out in our backyard for god knows how long because of all the wood we had piled around and since we moved some of it in our clean-up attempt she had to move too, but we just never saw her until the other day. Eck. We could have been sitting and standing near her for days. Or weeks. Eeesh. Let’s not think about that though. Let’s think about this instead: The nice thing about living in the suburbs is we live very close to, “the end of the suburbs”, which is basically open land and fields and forest preserves. We picked the best one that had everything: Prairie-like land, woods, marshy swamp area, and water. And not visited or populated by many people. Some areas see lots of traffic, the one we picked has very little, in general and by comparison. We drove over there Monday, nice and early. No people. took a walk deep into the back, a nicely wooded and flat area, where the secondary, smaller pond is, and let her go along the tree line. It’s a good spot. Lots of space for a young snake. (We have been thinking juvenile, totally based on color and patches, via the internet again. I could be completely wrong of course. Male. Old. Dying. Who knows.) Anyway this is her new home:
We let her out of the pillowcase, onto the ground, behind where we took the picture. Thick woods, away from the roads or parking areas, with that view across. She layed for a minute in the grass and the sun. And slowly slid into the trees. Then she was gone.
Stepping Up Our Wildlife Game
S is for snake! This little lady was laying right in front of our door last night when we got home from shopping at Target. I mention the Target part because we do not live in an area where this type of snake roams free. And truthfully I didn’t even see it. I apparently walked right over it. Stevie too. Mason started yelling from the door, “Are you kidding me?? Did you guys NOT see this giant snake sitting out here on the ground?? Are you kidding me??” I am paraphrasing for time. Add many more swear words and repeat 10 more times. I thought he was kidding. Nope.
Of course she slithered herself in between the outdoor plastic tub we have and the house. It was near dark when we found her and could not get a good look. She was rattling her tail and beating it against the ground and bricks while trying to move. So we thought rattlesnake. This is my night pic. The only one I could get:
Looks like a rattlesnake to me. Sounded like one too. So we called the police because we thought they need to know about potentially dangerous animals. They do. BUT. This isn’t really in their scope. They sent an officer who helped us move the tub so we could catch it. We did. Put it in a plastic bin and then into a pillowcase. Left it outside by the garage. Then went to the internet to try and identify. Success! I feel kind of smart too since that is a crappy picture and memory is not as good as you might think when you are terrified that a rattlesnake is going to bite you or try to crawl into your house. Our pretty little snake though, seems to be a Fox Snake. Often mistaken for the rattlesnake in Illinois. Often. Quick FYI’s and possible, relevant, future knowledge, you might need too someday:
Rattlesnake: Similiar colors, but, with a lighter enhancing outline around the dark pattern. And shaped like bow-ties. Thinner in the middle.
Fox Snake: Darker, rectangular pattern with light background. Picture proof obtained.
Rattlesnake: The rattle on the end.
Fox Snake: No rattle, but tries to mimic the rattle, by vibrating the tail just like a rattlesnake. Yep. True that. It rattled that rattleless tail alot to scare us. But, no rattle. Also confirmed via pictures.
Rattlesnake: Slit eyes with vertical pupils. Vertical. Up and down. Very scary looking.
Fox snake: Round eyes. Round pupil. You can see her pretty eyes in the above pic. And here. We really got in there this morning with the picture taking.
Rattlesnake: Light bottom. Similar coloring to top.
Fox Snake: Yellow bottom. Or orange. Could not confirm that until today. Yellow.
Both snakes are available in various lengths, but the Fox Snake is 3-5 feet. Ours is prob 4 feet.
The head is lighter in color, like the pattern gets blurry or smeared, whereas the rattlesnake head keeps the pattern same as the body.
And constricting. Bites for defense, but not poison. The internet claims it doesn’t hurt. Hmm. That will remain unconfirmed. Eats mice and rodents. It’s a sub species of rat snake I guess. Not aggressive unless attacked or threatened. Also, most likely female, based on size. We are just going with it. We played with her for quite awhile this morning and she never attacked. She did try and constrict and curl and keep trying to get out of the bin, so I picked her up bare handed and was able to look at her closely and then put her back into the pillowcase without physical harm.
A few phrases come to mind: “Snake charmed.” They do have a mesmerizing magnetic effect that makes you want to keep them and touch them. “If it was a snake it would have bitten me.” I NEVER even saw the damn thing laying straight and flush against the house. Camouflage in action. “Snake wrangling.” We were quite hilarious and ridiculous last night chasing that girl all around the house trying to pick it up with rakes and sticks. Little did we know we could have just grabbed it. But in our defense it was pretty “strikey” last night until we calmed it down.
At any rate, I posted it on Facebook for anyone to have. We can’t keep it, but we won’t kill it or let it loose somewhere. Could be a pet that got free, because it is not really indigenous to our particular location. One more interesting factoid: It is unlawful to catch, keep or kill this snake in Iowa. Endangered I think. Protected maybe. Mason found that info. There are like, 39 different kinds of snakes in Illinois at any one time, (4 are poisonous), and we get an out-of-towner. Seems funny. And don’t worry, I’m not going to just give it to anybody. It’s not food for something else or material for shoes or purses. If no one legitimately can take it and care for it properly, I am calling a private owned pet store we know of–that only deals in fish and reptiles–to see if they want it or can at least take it and fine a home for it. No animals will be harmed in the making of this post.
So, that was our night. We have to go to a grad party now (Yay Jesse!! High School Over!! College Bound!!) and prob won’t be back until dark again. I cannot wait to see what will be hanging outside the back door later on! The lost reptile wildlife of suburban Chicago must know we specialize in taking care of fish and turtles and are hoping to expand the family with snakes. What will it be tonight? I am hoping alligator! Or crocodile! Either way, it’s going to make an awesome photo gallery tomorrow! Last shot because I have one more picture I want to use.
We Take A Lot Of These Shots Too
Driving. Somewhere between here and Kentucky. From the boy. That’s it.
From The Boat. Off The Boat. The Boy.
Kentucky Lake somewhere. Samsung Galaxy S4. Below is the boat, sort of. He likes the picture because you can see the image so sharply. It’s good. And now I have to go. Should I post his self portrait? I need to update the “About Us” page and I am hoarding all these pictures of the kids as they age. But, what the heck, they are so good looking, multiple postings can’t hurt. I changed the title to suit my comments after the fact. It’s always a work in progress over here. Stick around because later I have pictures of…Fire!! Oh yes, it’s gonna be a good weekend already.
New Flower Alert!
New chance to take an extreme close up with my fancy phone camera. Thank you to all who are “liking” my pictures and following along here every day! I am trying to like back and follow you too! There is so much good stuff out there in this big big world! I will try and make my words and pictures as interesting as possible. This is one small life, living. And sometimes it is just about doing laundry and taking a picture of some flower in your front yard. Simple stuff. Anywhere on Earth. That sounds like Sunday philosophy not Friday fun, so let’s get the boy’s pics up here before I go to work and bring down the whole day. One more shift and then I am off for the weekend. I am tired. But not tired enough, apparently, to stay in bed instead of walk around the outside for hours inspecting the greenery. Here’s one to start us off. Taken at Land Between The Lakes. It’s an ironic picture.
And This Is Really Showing Off
Again, with the S4. I took it this morning when I was dead heading my flowers that I have somehow managed to bring back to life. Please feel free to click the image so it gets really big, and you can get in there, nice and close, and see all the detail, clarity, and acuity I am working with over here. Using my phone camera. I have to go to work now, but hopefully my son can impress everyone later with the pictures he took with his S4, before we had to replace it. I managed to forward about 10 of the 50 or 60 pics on the camera before it got shut down. I scrolled fast and tried to save the best. We’ll see.
This Is Just Showing Off
Samsung Galaxy S4. My front facing camera is better than your back camera. Just saying. These were all taken with the S4. This is a cell phone camera. Jelly much?
And Now Back To The Cutting Edge
The butterfly blooms are finally coming in. It’s not just a patch of weeds if flowers are visible and butterflies hover. Looks like I may have sprinkled the seeds pretty evenly this year too. No gaps or thin areas. Texture and color variety. Cutting edge. As promised.
Red, White, And Blue In America
What’s more American than a small town parade, a painted horse, a cowboy, and children waving the flag? Nothing, that’s what. Happy Fourth Of July!
just shy of pretty 