Midnight Snake

Still up at 1:30 a.m., trying to make June last as long as possible, and was surprised to find a visitor in the dining room, specifically on the dining-room floor. This is a baby blacksnake, about 8 inches long. As far as I have seen, young blacksnakes can be gold or silver and they have thin stripes around their necks. Snakes are rare indoor visitors here, but usually appear in the house a day or two after heavy rain, possibly displaced from their cozy nooks by water, or they are hunting spiders or other crawly creatures already in the house.

Do creepy-crawlies bother me? Not really. I once kept company with a herpetologist who was very thin and when he got angry wanted to bite things, no lie. I preferred my own company. Large snakes make me catch my breath, and I am not exactly pleased finding five-inch wolf spiders inside my stereo speakers, but otherwise I accept them, except for ants in my kitchen. They get doused with vinegar or bleach.

The Secret Glade

LaBarque Creek Conservation Area off Doc Sargent Road now has a well-marked, three-mile "primitive" "moderate to difficult" loop trail. That's putting it mildly. Be prepared for lots of uphill, carry a hiking staff, and bring water because the loop will take two solid hours. But halfway along the trail, high up, is this marvelous secret glade, and being there was worth all the slogging and sweat.

What's a glade? It's a rocky clearing or "outcropping" you'll find up in hills or mountains, home to spring wildflowers and water features like this basin. Because there's mostly rock and little soil, few trees grow in glades, so it's open to sunlight, and I even found a few prickly-pear cacti. A lake up in the mountains always seemed impossible to me, but this little one in the conservation area is a scale model of how it's done. The water runs from here into a pretty little LaBarque Creek tributary, arched over with trees, that forms one border of the conservation area.

Butterfly: Zebra Swallowtail

Not found often, and not in all Missouri counties, my first Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) is enjoying the Butterfly Weed (Ascelpias tuberosa) in the Divine meadow. The white wings with their pale-green undertone, and the bits of red markings above the tail, and the long, long swallow tails, positively identify it out of the lineup that includes the yellowish Tiger Swallowtail and the Pale Swallowtail. I hope you see your own divine Zebra Swallowtail soon.

Hitching a Ride

The Shaw Nature Reserve is 3000 acres in the next county over, and today I renewed my membership there and went for a camera hike. Walked an hour and a quarter just to get to my planned starting point, the picnic shelter, then down the bluff to the gravel bar on a bend in the Meramec River (above). Enjoyed my visit. Hiked back up the bluff to the shelter. By then I had been walking for three hours and was worn to a thread. After drinking water and resting I faced the hour-and-a-quarter walk back to my car, in the noon sun. For once I didn't relish the thought.

Somebody else was up there in the shelter, a staffer, packing up his janitorial stuff and getting into his Shaw Nature Reserve pickup truck when I got inspired (or desperate) and called to him, "Can I have a ride?"

He said, "Why, sure!" And he cleaned off the passenger seat and, hallelujah, I got a ten-minute ride back to my car.

My escort was Mr. Thurman. He said he'd never cared for flowers or gardening until he visited the fabulous Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. Next day he dug up his back yard and planted roses. He'd worked 27 years in a factory, quit, found this janitorial job in the paper and worked it full-time. Turns out he also rescues people: moms with double strollers who've miscalculated how exhausting it would be to push the kids around 3000 acres, and he looks for and gathers up hikers from the trails when a thunderstorm threatens. And grants rides to tired middle-aged lady hikers wearing dumb-looking sunhats. And I learned I hadn't had to walk that first hour at all. Mr. Thurman said visitors could drive up to the picnic shelter Mondays through Thursdays, and start from there.

He took me straight to my car and waited until I had my keys in hand. Priceless!

Sweet Love

Honeybee in a wild rose today. Don't believe the doomsayers who claim they're all gone.

What's in My Road Shoulder

Thunderstorm this afternoon as the public-works mowers along the highway were working. They left in a rush in orange trucks, parking this mower right in our road shoulder by our mailboxes, probably returning tomorrow to finish the job. Having a John Deere mower left on my property doesn't happen daily so of course after the storm I went down to inspect it. Looks a lot like a Model T Ford if you ask me. I like the sunshade at the top. Missouri summer sunshine can wham you on the head like a cast-iron frying pan, and almost everyone wears headgear so they don't get heatstroke or sun poisoning. I got mildly sun-poisoned once and had to sit out a day of my life in deep cool darkness till I felt better.

This is a sight you'll see only in the country. This picture was just so Green Acres I had to show you.

Ebony Jewelwing

A stunning sight: blue/green titanium body and black velvet wings. It's not a dragonfly; it's a damselfly, Calopteryx maculata, the Ebony Jewelwing. First saw it in the jungle-like road shoulder a few days ago. Recalled a short course with a professional nature photographer, who said, about photographing wildlife, "If you've seen it there once, wait and it will come back." So this evening I took the camera, but thought this elegant insect was too amazing ever to see again. Saw it, couldn't believe my luck, eased myself down into the road shoulder, promptly slipped in the water at the bottom and fell and scared the thing off. Waited quietly about a minute, and it did come back.

How to tell dragonflies from damselflies: Dragonflies at rest extend their wings to the sides; damselflies fold them on their backs, as you see. I feel truly privileged to have spent some time on earth with this lovely creature. Its beauty and getting to share it with you is worth all the gasoline in all the commutes I have to make because I live out here, and it is worth the time the car slid off the road in the snow, and worth an uninsulated bedroom that tops out at 50 degrees in winter, and worth hornworms eating my kale and ticks and chiggers up my pant legs. I hope you understand me. There are some things money just can't buy. The Ebony Jewelwing is most often found in the Ozarks. How lucky.