Um, Hello. I'll Just Make Myself Scarce for Awhile

I spent the night at my daughter's and just got home a few minutes ago. Her hubs is out o' town in Prague on a film shoot and she'd bought tickets a while back for The Police/Elvis Costello concert at The Hollywood Bowl. And while I know your amphitheaters are great, I'm telling you, this one is probably at least as good or better. It's hard to beat the location. So this afternoon when I got home, I watched the hummingbirds do their pissed off dance around my fountain and knew it was time to top up the water level. I was wearing my shoewear of choice this year...Croc's flipflops (you can run in these). Two years ago, when I had a similar sighting (as the one below), I was wearing Havaiana flipflops (not so easy to run). If these discoveries continue, I'm just going to wear my sturdy, red walking shoes at all times.

Wait, oh shit, don't move, let me go get my camera



Study of snake and broken wind chime pipe
Snake and hose.


I'm not really sure what to do when I see a snake, besides run away flapping my hands and screaming, "ohmygod, ohmygod." This time I wanted to take pictures first, then doing the flapping bit and then call the fire department. Part of me hates doing that but the other part, the grandmother part, knows you have to do it in case the snake is nesting or living in one's 'garden.' And the reason I hate doing that? Because this is what they do...or what they did...a year ago. Today's snake was a lot bigger than last years, though.

Below are copied and pasted bits from the previous snakeie posting.



Can you see it...look carefully, on the right. A rattler. And I almost stepped on it. Shit. It had obviously just crawled out from some chilly undergrowth and was searching for some warmth. Luckily, it was still a slow mover. I took the other stairs back up to the house and got Himself who was on the phone with his sister in Wales. I mouthed, "IT'S IMPORTANT! IT'S A RATTLER!" We both ran back down so I could show him what had almost killed me and we both determined that it should be moved, back up into the canyon, away from homes and humans and we did try to get him in big plastic rubbish bin but he rattled furiously and slithered away. Freaky fast and then he was under a rock. Himself kept an eye on him while I dialed 911. They put me on to the local Topanga Fire Department and they dispatched a pair of firefighters to, I presumed, move this rattler, perhaps to Topanga State Park.


But no, they didn't come to move it, they came to kill it. And I felt like shit because they killed a creature that has more claim to this land than I. Sure, I rationalize it. Little kids play here. Rattlers are beyond dangerous. But I still don't feel good about today.
Tomorrow we're going to buy this grabbing device that will allow us to capture, contain and move any future snakes that choose to visit.

And guess what...we still haven't bought the grabbing device thing.

Update: We think it was a Gopher Snake...which may be why it didn't rattle at me.