Garden

[Icegoddess]

I know this fella won't get the love given to the bluebirds, hummingbirds, and deer here, but it's a totally harmless garter snake I found this morning.

[Latonya]

Handsome fella.  We have them too.  He looks a lot larger than he is in your picture.  

[Kachina624]

That looks like two snakes! 

[Icegoddess]

@Kachina624 , no, just one.  It's cool and cloudy out today, so it's been moving around a little, but not far from where I took that pic.  If you look near the top of the closeup photo you can see the forked tongue sticking out.  Checking me out I guess.

[PA Mom-mom]

@Icegoddess They always surprise me when I least expect them! It reminds me of an Emily Dickinson poem:

A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)

BY Emily Dickinson

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Occasionally rides -

You may have met him? Did you not

His notice instant is -

The Grass divides as with a Comb,

A spotted Shaft is seen,

And then it closes at your Feet

And opens further on -

He likes a Boggy Acre -  

A Floor too cool for Corn -

But when a Boy and Barefoot

I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled And was gone -

Several of Nature’s People

I know, and they know me

I feel for them a transport

Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow

Attended or alone

Without a tighter Breathing

And Zero at the Bone.

[tucsongal]

 We wouldn’t trade our lizards for anything 🦎

[Love my grandkids]

Garter snakes are harmless and eat bugs.

[catter70]

They also eat small rodents, birds, worms and frogs.

[Icegoddess]

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@catter70 wrote:

They also eat small rodents, birds, worms and frogs.

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@catter70 I really would like a big ol' King Snake, preferably with a chipmunk in it's mouth.  I rescued one from some bird netting a few years ago, but haven't seen one in a couple of years.  It was a good bit bigger than the garter snake I just posted, but not sure even it was big enough for my chipmunks.

[kitty60]

I run from any snake.  I just don't want to know they are there.  I am always extra careful when I am weeding some of my heavier beds.