Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The count




The count begins. I have actually collected two ticks on Turkey Mountain a month or so ago, on a day when the temps soared into the upper 70s. Today, I managed to find the third, while mowing grass, right here in my front yard. I had slaved away with some dull limb clippers sculpting shoots that arose from the stump of a destroyed Bradford pear tree (damned ice storm) into some sort of bush that in my dreams may resemble a tree someday.Where was I? Oh, ticks. A friendly little guy was trying to find his way to some choice meat upwards of my forearm. Futility. He met a bitter end.

More critters....later tonight while feeding my dogs, this 4' rat snake slowly attempted to make an exit from right under my chair. My first thought was that this might have been the copperhead that had bitten Rocky about a month ago.But it's darker color, very slender tail, and slightly skinnier head told me it was not venomous. A Google search showed it to be a rat snake, which actually is a good snake to have around, just not under my lawn chair. After chasing it off the patio, around a couple of flower pots, it retreated somewhere up inside the riding lawnmower inside the garage. It may still be there. I hope he/she leaves before I fire that mower up tomorrow morning.

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