Garter Snakes

(Note:  This was in the draft file from way back, 3-26-08)


Ah, spring.... G did school with K this morning, I worked all morning...I had thought this was going to be an easy week...well, maybe tomorrow!!

About 3:30 I was beat and it was sunny, so K and I went outside to feed the horses and replace some rotted fence posts in the back yard--a job I have been putting off all winter. I don't mind the nailing or the digging, but inevitably the posts are rotted only a foot down, and so the other foot and a half is still good and next to impossible to pull up.

K and I ducked into the lean-to to dodge one hail storm. We have pea-sized hail that stings bad enough...I can't imagine what hail would be like if it were golf ball sized like in the midwest!! The hail stopped as quickly as it started and we went to work knocking off rails and pulling up posts, and started digging out our first post.  K spotted a baby snake (garter snake) so we looked it over and I explained to him that we couldn't keep it in the house because Daddy would flip....and then I pulled up another scoop of rotted wood and sitting right on top of that was an even bigger garter snake, maybe 10 inches long.

When we first moved here, we had red racers...black with red heads and red/orange stripes. But the ones we have been seeing in the past few years are the most beautiful blue...We held the slow-moving, slow-motion snake in our gloved hands and watched as it "tasted" the spring air, deciding who held it and if it was time to wake up yet. It warmed up as we held it and admired it. It had a pale yellow stripe down the back and each side and the spots on the black body between the stripes were a neon blue. In the summer, these snakes move so fast (and there are BIG ones in our manure pile, aka the fly-smorgasborg) that I half thought I imagined the neon blue. But it really is neon blue. As we examined his tummy, the sun came out and K noted the opalescence of his gray-blue underside, glimmering blue and pink and silver and cream.

What an amazing God we have that He would make even the underside of a snake beautiful!! And how fortunate for us that we got to catch one and examine it today!! And how lucky I am to have a boy to share it all with!! The rain and cold finally drove us inside, but at least we got one post replaced...enough to keep Gracie out of Bill's yard!!