A Good Day

Well it just might be the phase of the moon, square Mars at the moment... but frankly, I'm up for a bit of 'folding' too. It's probably the ants. Coming out of nowhere, everywhere... they can fight so much better than me. (I know that isn't correct to say, but 'I' just didn't suit me)

Then there is the nightly 'what is crawling on me' routine, which has been not just spiders over faces, and vinegroons over feet... but one night - a ree-inch forest centipede. Just watching J spring off the couch, flicking it off his foot, and seeing it wriggle awkwardly across the floor... gave me the heebie jeebies. But there was a frailty in its slowness, it's search for shelter and not wanting to die... as much panic and adrenaline as it caused, we cupped it and walked WAY out in the desert in the middle of the night to let it out. I'm sorry, Pedie, that you aren't built for the desert, and I don't know how you came to be with us... but you can't stay in the house, no matter how pretty your blue-lined segments and transparent salmon-colored body... I know we wouldn't die, but we have pains every day, and need no more welts on our bodies or souls if we can help it!

So I get tired... of the bumps and bruises, cat is limping and I think it's more arthritis, scrapes on my arms from trimming horse feet and someone felt a bit rude, waking up with unknown bites on me, an errant fly landing on my face in the morning, over and over, and where's that damned flyswatter? The water that comes out too warm (when turned to the cold side), the hurricane winds that three times have landed our tarped, steel-framed shade on the roof, the daily threat of the searing sun that if I stay out too long, it will make bacon out of me.
But there was a respite yesterday.

After the 6am equine feeding, I noticed the clouds, and even a bit of lightning. It took two hours to arrive, but the rain actually rained instead of the typical 10 minute spit-fest; there was even a slight breeze, dropping the 80-degree warmth to near-chilly. I was so elated, I stood out with the horses at second breakfast (10am) brushing them down, comforted with two of my favorite things. There is something about rain, life falling from the sky, the earth is refreshed, and spirit sighs ahhhh...

I am at last too chilled, and head to the house, where the AC is still on, because the 95 degrees inside hasn't been able to be flushed out since the Boys broke the window screen in the kitchen, where our cross breeze used to flow out the living room. On my way, I see a softball-sized stone in the self-made horse manure compost area, and go to pick it up lest they stumble over it... I often underestimate their attention span, I guess. But as I bend down, grasping it with my left hand, continuing to move my right leg forward in a snatch-and-grab motion, I hear it. Others may have mistaken it for a crackling leaf, or a tiny twig snapping in a couple places at once... but not me. Some innate prickle made me stop mid-motion, let the rock go, and step backward.

If I would have looked up just then, I would have seen her, not two feet from me, coiled and blending in with the oldness of green that happens when road apples oxidize. I would have been able to see up close, and count again the buttons on the end of her tail, that she so caringly raised up for me, and shook, with the slightest softness, saying "We had a deal."

But I did not have to look up, to know what this sound meant.

The former Mojave Jane was slimmer than before, looked smaller in her heart-shaped loops, and even at first we thought maybe it was a different Mojave Green Rattlesnake, maybe a smaller, younger rival... but could it be, that of all the things we've heard about the ferocity and aggressiveness of these snakes is not true? Guess that would not surprise me, most stories get blown out of proportion. And I'm sure somehow that it was a good thing I did NOT make eye contact with any snake two feet from me, if animal behavior has taught me anything. With dogs, horses, probably snakes too, it is a pressure point that seems to goad the look-ee to act in some way. With the Boys I use it to move them, being the Alpha Mare I am supposed to be able to do that. But I'll not be trying that with Gracie. Not when she has the double whammy.

Not only does she possess the typical neurotoxin that makes rattlers so deadly, acting to interrupt synaptic relays in the nervous system, among other effects causing breathing paralysis... she somehow also contains the hemolytic venom found in other types of snakes, that slices open every red blood cell it comes across as it moves throughout one's pulmonary system. There is some debate whether it was nature or men that saw fit to create this snake (dad says they were created from a green mamba, where it gets its base color and hemotoxin, and a diamondback, with its neurotoxin and patterned skin, during WWII to let loose in German foxholes) but nonetheless, she holds the trump card. Unless she is threatening and needs to be removed, we can coexist nicely, I'll hold up my end of the deal by not getting so close, and she won't kill me.

We walked around the rest of the 2 and 1/2 acres to see what kind of life the rain would bring out. On the northern section of the property, we almost literally fell over this little guy. We're calling him George for the moment. He was out in the field, really REALLY hard to see in the dead sticks, rocks, etc. I walked nearly right over him, saw him at the last second (it must have been the snake gods watching out over me again!) and just kept heading straight - I would have walked over him to rejoin J. I told J to KEEP WALKING STRAIGHT, now stop, let me point out the OTHER rattlesnake... and here he was. Coiled in the same fashion, looking like a pile of something, and oh so quiet. By the time we got back with the camera to start photographing our little zoo, he had moved to under a yucca tree, where you see him here.

There is a gigantic iguana-size lizard living underneath our rooftop-patio stairway, too, and since he is so shy I had to look for a pic of something like him, as well. He is almost a foot long to the tip of his tail, a hefty guy, making sure all our camping gear is free of spiders and insects... in spite of his shyness, he hangs out on the stucco wall looking fabulous, we call him The Dude.

It still interested me why they come out in the rain. Maybe I'd heard it said somewhere that snakes in the desert coil up to capture water and drink it off their skin. Wouldn't surprise me. Many more Gentlemen were out and about, which I identified (I think) as skinks and leopard whiptail lizards. The skinks are just fun to watch, their jerky movements and constant quest for the next ant... the whiptails are much less myopic, and keenly aware of anyone approaching them, and fast as lightning when they make their escape! Sometimes they even leave little dust puffs with their feet as they skate over the dirt so quickly. It makes me laugh. Too fast for a pic, so I had to find one on the net.

There also began to appear some smaller Gents, with racing stripes and LONG, we're talkin' ultra long blue tails. In my search for species ID, I did run across something called a Blue Whiptail, and we did get a pic of these little guys. But three out of four times we ran across the leopard whiptails, the blue tails were right there alongside... I then discovered that the striped blue tails are the juvenile of the species! Very exciting.

it was a pretty good day.