I had good intentions early this morning of working in the gardens. I went out as soon as it was light (a bit after 6 a.m.), grabbed a wheelbarrow and begun pulling out all of the spent blooms on the sedum. Remember all of that lovely white stuff in my rockwall garden? Well, now it is brown and ugly. I just grab handfuls of it and yank it out. I had an entire wheelbarrow full in just one area. I probably would have hand 3 wheelbarrows full if I had not reached down, grabbed a handful and as I was lifting my hand up, there was a snake all curled up sleeping right where I had just removed the sedum. YIIIKKKKEEESSSS......I hate slithering reptiles--I jumped back and then bent over to take another peek just to make sure that it was indeed a snake. It did not move for a full 30 seconds or so before it uncurled and slithered forward. I must have been within a 1/4 inch of actually grabbing it!
After such a close call, there was no way I was going to reach into any more of the sedum. My desire to garden was completely gone. That is when I went inside and decided to work on the light fixture (see post below). So I did virtually no gardening today, which was fine, as I had done some the past few evenings and most of desperate-to-be-done stuff is done. I did just finish watering the containers. Earlier in the day I stuck a few scarecrows in a few of the deck plants just so I had something different to look at.
I grabbed a snake like that but it was a water snake. As an entomology student I had to make a number of insect collections for various classes. I was looking for water insects and thought I was pulling out a weed at the edge of the bank. Well my 'weed' wriggled out of my hand (it was only about a foot long but I didn't get a good enough look at it to figure out what kind it was). Needless to say I was a little more careful reaching into the creek that day.
ReplyDeleteawesome! I love snakes!
ReplyDeleteKerry, I would have gone into immediate cardiac arrest!
ReplyDeletegirl gone gardening - welcome! No matter how long I garden, I am pretty sure I will never learn to like snakes!
Ah, but you tolerate them, and that is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI like snakes, and get the occasional garter snake on my property. They are welcome here, even if they eat my toads.
(It's the voles I want them to go after!)
I just about went into cardiac arrest thinking about the snake. They totally freak me in fact I came across one last year while cutting the grass and I still keep a wary eye open for it when I get into the same area. Worms and slugs do the same thing to me but not quite as bad.
ReplyDelete