One of my favorite summer pasttimes 'round these here parts: driving through the wooded hills.
The hope is that an airconditioned car jetting through absolute beauty will stir love between siblings.
I think all my post titles will be "Summer Something-s" because as I said in the previous entry, I am lazy about writing in this Outside Season.
After three days of rain I returned with a mixture of reluctance and relief to the BAD bed where I'd been cutting down weeds and planting perennials--and lovely-o, if it wasn't the easiest job ever to cut into the soft earth and plop those fellows in. As I headed to a pile of weeds I'd cut down before the rain, Sammy the Snake, (or one of his/her many offspring) slithered a portion of his green and yellow body and startled the stuffing out of me. After some seconds I was able to locate his two black eyes, staring at me--signifying what, exactly?--curiosity, coldness, warmth of friendship?--It's hard to tell with snakes. That's the thing about Sammy--I find him staring at me from odd places, and then I know he's been staring at me for possible ages, and I've just now noticed him. It gives me the creeps.
Sammy, or one of the Sammies, appears in the most startling places (by nature of snakeness, he is inherently startling no matter where he appears). Mostly he appears to me and then the rest of my family mock me when they hear my frenzied squeals echoing across the garden. Truthfully I do not mind Sammy, or the Sammies, in the garden, since they are garters, but I do not appreciate the quality of surprise that always accompanies their appearances. I coax aloud as I walk past his favorite compost pile, "All right, then, Sammy, here I come, so don't just jump out at me. I don't mind you being here but I just don't want you to scare the liver out of me. Okay? So here I come" [Here I whistle and make other silly noises to encourage him to hide].
As you might recall, Martin the Tenderhearted saved the first Sammy from being flattened by our handy-man's pick-up several years ago. It was the the height of August and the vegetables were oversized monsters, a snake heaven. Martin tenderly carried S. Snake into the garden, where the girls stroked Sammy's long brown body before Martin let him into the compost pile. So we have a fondness and relationship with the original Sammy and, theoretically, with his/her offspring.
The year after Sammy's introduction to our front garden, it was late spring and I was weeding Thistle Hill when I disturbed what appeared to be a nest of little Sammies, sending me into a miniconiption as I watched the little serpentine babies wiggle away through the brush. And ever since then our garden has apparently become a hotbed of snake love and procreation.
Thistle Hill, looking down to the badminton spot and fire ring
Like I said, garters are good for the garden; we have no rodent problems, and I am thankful as long as--EEEK--they just stop appearing in odd places in proximity to my bare toes.
A random Columbine for you
