Day 189 - Wildlife

Our neighborhood borders a swamp so we've had our share of wildlife encounters over the years.  There are alligators in the neighborhood ponds, wild boars in the woods (I've never seen one personally), deer, foxes, snakes, lizards, and frogs to name a few.  All mostly keep to themselves with a few exceptions.  We've had to deal with a few snakes over the years, and those dealings are probably the most harrowing.  The scariest snake that crossed our path was a 3-foot rattlesnake that Mike spied on his way home from the grocery store. He was driving down the street and saw it slither across the road and into our next door neighbors' driveway.  You can't really leave a rattlesnake to its own devices so we all huddled to try to figure out how to get rid of it and came to the conclusion that our neighbor should run it over with his truck.  That did not work. The snake was very much alive and very much angry.  As we were trying to figure out what to do next, a very outdoorsy (thankfully) neighbor drove down the street. He got a shovel, cut off the snake's head, showed all of the kids (and me) its fangs, and took it home to skin (seriously). There was quite and audience by that point, and most people wanted to see the snake.

There have been other snakes that have probably been harmless that met a similar fate.  One small one made its way into our garage last week, and he had to go.  One was on a chair on our porch one day, and a friend took pity on him and managed to get him to the woods alive.  Mike is NOT a fan of snakes so their destiny is often left to me or neighbors who take pity on me. During the rattlesnake incident of 2013, Mike remained a good 400 feet away from the action.  I can't really blame him.  That snake was scary.

Our area is home to many tree frogs and lizards that sometimes make it into our house.  It's not always easy to get them back out, and sometimes we don't even see them come in.  I opened the door this afternoon to water some plants on our front porch, and a large lizard ran right into the house.  I was alone and determined to get him out.  My motivation was two-fold: I did not want him to die, and I did NOT want him to crawl across me during the night.  So I opened all doors in the house and got two cups and tried to scoop him up and/or chase him out.  I finally got him into the garage, opened the garage door and left the rest to him.  Hopefully he found his way out, but I really did all that I could do.  Lizards, are harmless, but I still did not want to touch him or have him crawl across my feet.  I am sure that it was quite the site.

The tree frogs are wonderful. After a big rain, they create the most magical symphony.  I often go outside just to listen to them. Frogs are my favorite, and I love that so many of them live in the eaves of our front porch. I go look at them almost every night.