Janitor of Eden

After two weeks away, the first thing to do is empty the mousetraps. Very fortunately there was only one mouse cadaver, fresh thank God, because had it been two weeks old it'd be stuck to the floor. I'd left May 20, just when there's so much to do to ensure a good summer here. Like:

• repair the porch screen. My sworn enemies, the squirrels, chewed through it and gnawed the plastic gasket from the metal step-can I store those delicious sunflower seeds in -- but failed to get to the seeds. Nyah, nyah.
• buy basil and dill plants and soil for repotting into the pots they'll occupy all summer, pots carried into full sun every morning and sheltered next to the house at nightfall, because otherwise the squirrels overturn and uproot them out of pure spite.
• clean and refill hummingbird feeders. I almost didn't want to leave for two weeks because the empty feeders would disappoint the hummingbirds, but I'm hoping my extra-sweet nectar recipe will persuade them to return and trust me; I don't intend to leave them again.
• retrieve the seed feeder from the underbrush where raccoons had dragged and left it; soap and rinse it, dry it in the sun. Acquire a poison-ivy hickey on my left leg.
• greet new young turtles and rabbits who have no idea I live here too.
• witness a high-speed chase: Miss Turkey in hot pursuit of a hefty blacksnake sidewinding itself across the grass at top speed and beneath the propane tank, thus winning that round.
• pull and dry the spring onions before they form heads.
• refill those clever little outdoor mouse-poison dispensers with green-turquoise blocks of mouse poison. They work; they've cut the indoor mouse war by 75 percent.
• approach the bluebird box to clean it. Yes, one must clean one's bluebird box. I didn't want to. Last time I looked, the nest held three baby chickadees and a baby bluebird. This is unusual. I feared finding the nest holding one or more dead. With gloved hands I unhooked the box and pulled out the nest. It was empty. Everyone had fledged! I was overjoyed.
• inspect the forest floor where the summer mushrooms grow. Despite an inch of rain, found nothing. It's still quite early in the season. On the way, saw butterflies enjoying the blossoming milkweed.
• check blackberry brambles for incipient blackberries, due in about three weeks. There are indeed little blackberry bullets. Last year's drought meant we had no crop. This year I hope for better.
• buy at the fruit and vegetable stand every sort of fresh tasty thing: beets, apples, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, berries, mushrooms, red onion, bananas, peppers, grapefruit, romaine -- to refill the fridge and to purify myself after two weeks away. And oh, yes, buy a bottle of wine, a rose, but I won't admit to that.
• clean the picnic table; apply a tablecloth.

All this activity was joyful. Give me a new computer stand and I'm in Eden! I'm so glad to be home, among the plants and creatures.

Don't Look at These Dead Snakes

The fireplace's grille has been taped shut since 2013 because snakes were being born in the hearth, harmless blacksnakes and Prairie Ringneck Snakes, but every April into August, the (non-working) fireplace was more and more like a nightclub with snakes coming and going, and finally the situation breached my tolerance level. Averse to the "duct-tape" look, I taped aluminum foil onto the grille trying to discourage further breeding in the fireplace, and added more layers of clear tape as it came unstuck.

This week I peeled away all the tape because it looked ugly and my Easter guests would spend lots of time in the living room. I think six snakes are visible in the photo; there were a number of smaller ones, maybe 12 in all.

Tape isn't an ideal solution. The snakes die of dehydration. In July 2014 I found a live snake stuck to a loose strand of tape, clearly suffering, and videotaped its rescue in a post. In fact this blog has several snake appreciation posts. I like snakes, but they really do better outdoors, and some of my  guests who if they saw live snakes sidewinding through the house would never be my friend again.

Please Don't Kill Me

Friend says there are snakes in her yard and she has her brother out killing them because they're worried about snakes biting their dogs. I asked, do you have woodpiles or stone bluffs nearby? She said yes. I said, snakes are just waking up after the winter's nap and simply passing through your yard. Please don't kill them. Now awake and slithering through is one of my blacksnakes -- the house snake here, just as a restaurant has a house wine. Harmless. It stood still and posed, head raised, while I took its ceremonial first-day-awake photo. Go eat those mice, bro' you're looking a little thin.

People hate snakes because they slither and they bite. But that's what snakes do. They have no alternative! Leave them alone, don't poke them or grab them, don't let your dogs play with 'em. "Don't let my dogs? But my dogs aren't under my control all the time." Excuse me, but they should be, in country as well as city. I'll bash your free-running dog that's running at me before I'll bash a snake.

Rock 'n' Roll Reptile

A special guest star joined the army worms aka tent caterpillars in my dining room last night: a young blacksnake. His mom lives beneath the kitchen floorboards and is as thick as my wrist. Already crazed by the hundreds of crawling things in my house, I approached him with a camera hoping he'd dine for me on nearby caterpillars. He gave me a full-on, like totally natural, snake dance.

Drama on the Dining-Room Floor

(Not retouched. The flash was 5 inches from the floor.)

Opened the door to the laundry room and saw coiled there a three-inch baby blacksnake. It startled, crawled down a step and snaked away along the dusty dining-room baseboard, where he got caught by the tail in a spider's web and struggled to move forward. Couldn't. The more he thrashed the more he was caught. The spider, who'd been waiting, descended, about to make a meal.

I felt sorry for the snake and snapped the web around it to set him free. Sticky webbing and dust balls were still tangled around his tail, though, hobbling him as he tried to escape. He did all he could to free himself. Here's the 7-second video:

I terrified him trying to remove the dustballs and sticky webbing, but succeeded, and then he curled up for a moment to rest in a safe little pile. By then I had set the camera to "flash" and,as in the photo at the top, saw the reason that the small blacksnakes I meet with in sunlight often look bright silver, not black: reflectivity. Which probably protects them in some way.

Talking reassuringly, I manuevered the snakelet into a container and freed him outside where there was cover so he wouldn't become anybody else's dinner.

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.

Who Lives Here? What'd She Eat? Did It Taste Real Good?

As I stepped off the stone steps into my yard to fill the birdbath, I saw this tableau and it told a mystery story. Something had dug a three-inch-wide hole (measured it) beneath the bottom step. It wasn't there yesterday. Whoever this hole-dweller was, he or she was not in sight. But he or she got hold of an egg -- just one, and plain white without identifying markings (I scrubbed the mud off a piece of shell, using an old toothbrush, just to check) -- and had opened and eaten it. Or, less likely, maybe something had hatched here. Eggshell reassembled provided no more clues.

The prime suspect is the large blacksnake who winters beneath my kitchen floor and eats mice. Saw her earlier this spring, sidewinding toward the house then disappearing beneath it, smooth as liquid, right by the kitchen door. Turned up one of her silver babies when digging nearby in order to plant annuals. I know my blacksnake savors eggs. Once I followed a mess of turkey-egg shells to a nest my blacksnake had cleaned out entirely. She was still there and let me take her picture. But if this time it was my snake or any other (because, three years ago, I saw a milk snake curled around the flagstones right here) how did it carry the egg from the nest to its door? In its mouth? Why didn't it dine where the egg was found?

For sure: It must've tasted real good.

Snake in the Bathroom

I moved here to live with the strange and pure forces of nature. Last night turned on the bathroom light and there's a blacksnake, about 7" long, sidewinding across the linoleum. Golly. Unexpected. I chose not to pick it up and take it outside. Who knows, it is young and may have been exploring all its options. This morning it's gone.

Worms & things like millipedes, caterpillars, crickets, and ants crawl in beneath my kitchen door because it's old and off kilter, and the bathroom's right near there, but outdoors is so wonderful now I can't imagine what the snake wanted in the house. (During drought periods, lizards & things will come inside looking for water.)

What Becomes a Legend Most?

This blacksnake has lived near kitchen door for at least three years, hiding in the ivy and stones, and in winter she sleeps in warmth and peace beneath the cabin's kitchen floor and now and then eats a mouse. She has, in the past, left a magnificent three-foot shed skin for me to admire. Broken and emptied shells of creamy beige-spotted wild-turkey eggs led me to Ms. Blacksnake and this picture. She held still for a good five minutes as if to say, "I'm giving you paparazzi one chance to get a good snap, now get it, and be off." Look at her elegant costume. I call this photo "What becomes a legend most?"

I think it was one of her silver children I accidentally stepped on one night in July.

Watch Where You Step at Night!

I went out in the dark to look at stars and planets. They were
wonderful;  they were wealth. Then, in the driveway,
something wet and coldish flapped over my foot and ankle.
I thought it might be an oak branch that had fallen and somehow
got wet.

I moved away and turned my flashlight on it. It was a snake,
silvery, a foot long, indignant and thrashing about. Probably
a young blacksnake; their young shine like minnows. If it was
hurt it was not seriously, because after it was done thrashing
it did the sidewinder thing across the asphalt and into
the tall grass. I cried, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!" and
hope it understood and forgave me.

It did not bite. I am truly very sorry. I didn't expect a snake
in middle of driveway in the dark. But from now on, I will.
They say you learn something every day. That's especially
true in the country.