April 29, 2024

Apples And Snakes

I woke up without an alarm at 4 AM and stayed in bed until my wife woke up about twenty minutes later. We reluctantly got out of bed, knowing the school and work week started up today. My wife whipped up a hot latte for me and a cappuccino for her. The dogs knew mama was leaving today and Koda seemed a little anxious, not wanting to eat his breakfast. Though they were just animals, they watched our every move and knew when my wife was leaving for an extended period. In a flash, she was gone.

I spent the morning writing at my desk and preparing for my workday. Then, about an hour before work started, I cut my hair, took a shower, and got dressed. I took a short walk into the woods, where we cleared a secret trailhead and checked the trail camera posted there. The apples all had bites taken out of them. Were the deer here? I pulled up the footage on the camera and watched two rabbits hop around and then stop to munch on the fresh fruit. 

I reset the camera and then walked into the pine grove to check a second feeding area. The place was bare and all the food we set out was gone. The videos showed several deer had been through the area and eaten the food. We had some pregnant does on the property and they needed all the nutrition they could find. I arrived back at the house, booted up my work computer, and started going through several hundred emails I received while I was out last week.

During my lunch break, I took a walk into the pasture. On the ground, a beautiful red cardinal was feeding, remaining relatively stationary. I snapped several photographs, testing how close he would allow me to approach. After, I entered the woods and walked down to the creek area, hoping to find the large turtles I recently discovered. Once I got close to the water, I went into silent stalking mode. These turtles were alert and shy. While a turtle won’t ever run faster than a hare, it could move off the bank and into the water at lightning speed.

The turtles were not out today. In the grove, I shot a couple of photos of an eastern gray squirrel perched on the side of a tree watching me. The little mammal, with its long bushy tail, seemed playful, but had no interest in posing for photographs. Before work started back up, my wife called me and we talked, catching up on our mornings. She missed home, and I missed her. Whenever she was gone, time seemed so warped. We had coffee this morning, together on the couch. But somehow, it already felt like she had been gone for days.

Following a series of late meetings, I finished work, and the evening belonged to me. I planned to walk through the woods, make a fire, and grill some salmon. I went outside and cleaned up the backyard. After, I entered the forest and ran into our first snake of spring. I saw a cottonmouth a few days ago at Lake Wilson, but this was the first snake of the season on our property. The snake was small and had various shades of brown with distinct markings. The round, gentle eyes gave it away. This was a rat snake.

Last year, we saw several rat snakes close to the house. Those were all large black snakes, and we ran into them several times a week. They loved living near a woodpile that sat under an awning, but my wife quickly got rid of it so the snakes would leave. A large rat snake almost fell on my head while I was in the forest. That’s when I learned these snakes were avid climbers. Oh, and one large rat snake was sunning in the pasture while we were walking by. I moved it along with a long stick and it climbed up a round feeding pen that stood on its side and up into a tree.

My wife and I were walking along the main road last year and came upon an enormous pile of dead snakes. One local had killed them, leaving their corpses piled on the side of the road for the vultures. This was the birth of a new country saying we made up. When something was absurd, we liked to say that it was crazier than a pile of dead snakes. We were weird like that. This evening, I shot a few photos of the small brown snake and let it go on its way. Rat snakes were non-venomous and helped eat mice and other pests, so we welcomed them at our home, just not in our home. Last year, there was a sneaky snake wrapped around a flower pot on our front porch, just inches away from our front door. That one got evicted.

In the evening, I chopped some wood, lit a fire, and watched the dim sky go black as the stars came out. There was a foul odor in the air that hit my nose. At first, I thought something was dead under the deck, but then I remembered the smell from last year. There was some type of fertilizer or treatment farmers used on their fields that made the air stink for a day or two. I missed my wife, but I was happy she didn’t have to suffer through it. Soon, May would arrive, but this evening, the June bugs were out in full force, arriving earlier than their name suggested. If there was one thing my wife hated this time of year, it was the almighty June bug that always ran into her, grasping her skin with their pokey feet. My wife would probably jump off a building in order to avoid one.

For dinner, I smoked a large piece of salmon covered in chile and lime. When it was done, I ate half of it with a bowl of rice and split the rest with the dogs. After showering, I climbed into bed, but tonight’s sleep would be restless.