Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
--Emily Dickinson
Michele has her herbs and peppers in the greenhouse, and lately, when caring for her plants, she'd hear a rustling. At first, it was hard to locate the source, but one day the sound seemed to be coming from underneath the tarp floor. She stood still for a few seconds. There it was again! Then she felt something move under her foot; the movement immediately caused a tighter breathing and zero at the bone. (Less poetically, she shouted the name of the Redeemer--though not in a sense of worship--levitated, and air-walked out of the greenhouse and into the yard.)
Snakes are good. Snakes are our friends. We are especially glad to have them in the greenhouse. We like to know, however, where they are at all times so Michele doesn't need to be defribrillated every time she snips some thyme.
So she hit on a solution. She decided to stand on the step into the greenhouse and sweep a broom gently over the tarp to warn the snake that it's time for her to water the plants. The sweeping worked well for a while, but then apparently the sound started to resemble the rustling of a mommie snake.
Now the snake comes when called.
Michele is thinking of ways to make a pathway around the racks so that she can walk without worrying about the snake, and the snake can say hello without being stepped on.
Some of Michele's plants and her narrow buddy, under the tarp.
5 comments:
Ms. Dickinson sure was a wuss. I can understand being taken by surprise by a snake causing shortness of breath but always?!
I hope Michele has recovered from the fright and that Mr. Snake was unharmed in this encounter.
I'm always startled when I see a snake. But then, li ke you say, they're our friends. Better snakes than mice.
No garden should be without one. Has Michele given it a name, other than the mentioned shout out?
Your welcoming attitude and many efforts to accommodate your narrow friends are inspiring. We don't have them here, much, so that's one way I don't have to get in touch with my inner Eve.
However, I have had several encounters with rodentia this summer. They inspire, first, gasps, and then shouts about excrement. Also firetrucks, with some of those letters missing. Then calls for help.
I do not enjoy calling for help. I enjoy self-sufficiency and working out problems myself. But I get a free pass for rodents of all ilk.
Most recently I was in the large cottage and heard rustling overhead. I realized that squirrels had set up housekeeping in the ceiling of the place where family, including my fastidious sister-in-law, would soon be staying. You can bet I hollered for help with this one.
A homemade stink bomb rousted them out (the squirrels, that is; the family was harder to get rid of) (kidding!!) and a little wire mesh screen has kept them out. So far. But the water line has developed a mysterious hole or two since. Also, they yell at us when we walk around outside.
I have seen Chip and Dale cartoons. I know we have not won, even though these are squirrels, not chipmunks. I am satisfied with the standoff.
Now that's just interesting. Only a few snake species (that I know of, in my vast expertise as an internet blowhard) make any gestures whatsoever toward care of young, and while I've known of quite a few snakes or arthropods trained to come for a snack, I've never heard of any that were interested in just turning up to say hi. Tame snakes kept as pets, yes, but not wild.
All in our family love our yard snakes, clean and quiet dispatchers of plaguebearers that they are. We've got two bull snakes that hang around that we know of; fortunately, they're one of the few things smaller than she is that our female dog won't kill on sight.
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