For those unafraid of loooooong skinny things, I offer links to photos (and for those afraid of loooooong skinny things, you can thank me for not just posting the images here).
- What I almost stepped on during a walk yesterday.
- His much larger, nearby friend*
- My adventures in worm composting, which has been quite successful so far in reducing my garbage to trashcan mass. This began about two weeks ago. My goal was to find a way to compost organic matter year-round. There’s not much incentive for having to shovel a long path to a backyard compost pile in January…
* Both of these have been identified via herp-loving friends and photos as being garter snakes. The first one is specifically an eastern variant. Apparently the longer one is another variant. The more common variety can be seen here.
I am not afraid of long skinny things, although when the first one changed from a cold-slowed, dead-looking thing to a coiled-up, hissing thing, I paused to reflect. And having just walked into a woods, over a stone wall in late afternoon, I paused a few more minutes to carefully scan the ground for more. That’s when I saw number 2. I looked some more and then I carefully walked out, leaving them to soak up the last few BTUs of the day.
