Wisconsin Wanderings

We interrupt vacation memories to share some Wisconsin nature.

Brown Creepers don’t seem to like me much. This is only the second time I’ve ever seen one and he did not cooperate much more than the first one did!

Still, he was fun to watch hopping around on tree trunks.

As I was walking the trail later I thought I found a messed up bike tire.

Then I saw the end of the “tire” and took a step back. You may not realize it from my photos but I do not like snakes.

I really, really, really do not like snakes! But, I am more afraid of the ones I don’t see than the ones I do - if that makes sense. I do think the camera lends me some of its courage to pause and take some photos. But I still do not like snakes - deep down.

I spend a lot of time in parks, in the woods, on trails and off trails - sometimes in knee high grass. And it’s little fellows like this one that keep me having panic attacks while I walk through the weeds.

You see, my biggest fear is that I will step down on a snake, it will somehow get caught between my heel and my Crocs and as I accidentally smoosh it, it will whip back and bite me and because it is trapped between my heel and my shoe and I cannot get away from it. If Dennis gets further than a few feet from me my panic attack worsens until I am nearly hyperventilating. In fact, the deeper into the grasses I go, the more my panic heightens.

After all this time, I just thought you guys should know ~ I do not like snakes!

The Snake Saga Continues

Haden carefully carried the snake back to the car so I could grab the macro lens.  However, I'm not that fond of snakes so I handed the camera over to Dennis to get these closeups.

His skin has such a pretty pattern!

The snake was then set free.  He quickly got away from us.  But I couldn't help but wonder what the carload of girls would have done if they had stumbled across him on their was past our car.

Did you know that snakes emit a smelly substance when they feel threatened?  Haden was  the lucky recipient of said substance.  He got it on his clothes and the whole vehicle reaked!  We had to pull over so he could change and the clothes were placed in a bag and tied closed.  The car still stunk for the rest of the trip and some smell still lingers.  The clothes have been washed but you can still smell the faint odor.

My Snake Wrangler

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

After spending several hours exploring the falls we made our way up into the Adirondack Mountains and found a camping spot at Limekiln Lake State Park. We had a beautiful campsite and enjoyed our night there. If you can believe it, we used cheap swimming pool air mattresses under our sleeping bags and liked them more than our bulky camping air mattresses. Very comfy!

The next morning our path took us by a natural gorge and waterfall and of course we had to stop and hike in to see it. Very pretty!

On our way back to the car Haden’s wish was fulfilled - we saw a snake!

Apparently, he noticed us too.

After I took a few shots, Haden was unleashed and he went to work on catching the unsuspecting fellow.

This little snake struggled a lot so it took Haden a few minutes to sooth him. In the above photo he has the head held down because it kept trying to bite.

You can see that Haden is very gentle with him.

Finally, boy and snake seem content.

My son's new pal

Missouri Reptiles

Turtles are pretty common along Missouri roads and we happened upon this guy on a dead end road so I was able to take a few moments to admire him. I don’t know if you can tell, but he’s pretty good size.

When I moved that rock from in front of him he decided to retreat and peek.

{Snake alert for Aims}

We decided to try to find a cache at Jolly Mill but as we crossed the bridge (the bridge we were on is the third photo from the top) we saw this swimming in the water below.

This water moccasin (western cottonmouth) was no baby either, he was big, and he wasn’t alone, we counted three of them.

See the fish below him? How cool.

That is one huge crawdad!

There were some nests on the bottom side of the bridge, and hanging out of one was. . .a snake skin! EEEK! I’m outta here!

Btw: we did NOT go after the cache.

Little Critters and Whatchamacallit

WARNING: Snake photos follow (Aims, hope you read that)

We finally went out geocaching last weekend. We hibernated most of the winter but there was a really nice day (It’s raining and snowing again now!) and we couldn’t resist. We were walking through a marsh when we discovered the little snake I showed you a couple of days ago.

Haden loves any creature and is not afraid of any of them. He has been bringing me all kinds of things for years. One morning, when he was two and woke up before me, he went into the backyard with his older sister. It wasn’t long before he was at my bedside and I was waking up to a scratching noise. He had a tiny mole in a cardboard box and was tipping it towards me to ask what it was.

Another morning he woke me up to tell me (around his pacifier) that a baby kangaroo is a joey (He watches the Discovery Channel). When he was four the whole family went to White Water in Branson and as we were leaving we lost him. We all split up looking for him, in a panic and he had no clue he had even been lost. He was too busy pointing at the ants he was hunched over, watching on the sidewalk.

We have had our share of frogs, snakes, bees, lizards, etc brought into the house in some sort of container. So you would think I would be used to it by now. But still, when the snake was doing things like this:

And this:

His tongue is out, and he looks perturbed pissed! I happily handed the camera over to Dennis.

Even though he was very well contained by my gentle-handed son.

Waiver: No snakes were harmed in the taking of these photos and while said snake slithered happily away when released, I quickly dashed the other way. Thanx for all those crunches guys, I think they helped me run faster.

Now on to more pleasant things. Anyone venture a guess as to what this is?

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