Snakes and Snails...

Years ago, my mother befriended a snake who came up through the walls of her old house and made a nest in her linen closet. I don't remember what kind of snake it was, not sure I ever knew, but it obviously wasn't poisonous. She said it looked at her as if it knew her. It wasn't afraid of her, nor she of it.

This summer, Tom made friends with a little garter snake in our back yard. It likes the pond, likes to take a dip in the heat of the afternoon. (No fool, he. We've had lots of those super hot afternoons this summer.)
Here it is peering at Tom over the edge of the pond. (The concrete at the top of the picture is my house foundation. At the bottom is the pond edge.) That's as close as the snake gets to going into the water when it knows someone's watching, but Tom often sees it slither from the big sage bush at the corner of my herb garden and into the pond at the other end. (I see nothing when I'm outside, at least nothing smaller than Max.) I worried about the little fishies at first--we have three goldfish--but they seem to have fared well.

Today's the first really coolish day we've had since last spring--I think it's still only in the 70s. Come on, fall!