Wildlife in My Row

I used to think that this happened to me more than to other people -- the wildlife that shows up in my row -- but now I have come to the conclusion that maybe I am just more often in a place where wildlife might be surprised to see me.  Ever since I was a teenager I have felt unusually blessed by suddenly finding a skunk or a snapping turtle or a sleeping deer in my path.

Just yesterday I was zipping around the farm, picking my list, all by myself.  I was in the home stretch, with just parsley and scallions left, the very easiest stuff. I was barely paying attention as I approached the parsley bed from the downhill side when I heard/felt a sudden WHUMP.  I thought it was a big frog or toad (they are always hiding under chard leaves or peeking out of the beans) but it was an agitated snake. I think it had actually jumped backwards out of my way, landing on the black plastic, making that sound. I asked it why it wasn't just moving on.  It was kind of balled up, staring at me, flicking its long red tongue over and over.  It definitely had an attitude.  I decided not to pick the parsley that was within reach of the snake but I picked systematically down the bed, keeping my eye on it.  Unlike most snakes, it held its ground, raising its head to keep watching me and flicking its tongue. Snakes don't protect their eggs or their young, so this snake just was in a mood. Then I remembered I had a phone with a camera so I tried to take pictures, but it was very hard to see the snake in the shadows. It was about three feet long, with a hefty girth, a small head (not triangular and deadly) and a pattern of grey and yellow. Not really a black snake, which is what I usually see. 

That evening we were at dinner at Paul and Cookie's and I told them about this snake. Paul immediately called our friend Nina, an actual herpetologist, and we forwarded one of my not-great photos to her phone. She said it was just a really big garter snake, nothing dangerous. Unusually large and feisty, but not a hazard.

I am not big on snakes, but they don't make me scream.  Lani and Mom pick them up and handle them. Not me.  Their smooth, slippery skin gives me the willies.  One year there were black snakes tightly tangled up in the bird netting that we took out of the shed to put over the blueberries.  My mother and I spent hours cutting the plastic that was wrapped tightly around the snakes (which were large).  She held the head so it wouldn't bite and I breathed through my mouth because they were so stinky, and I gently cut the netting that was cutting into the skin.  We rescued two snakes and one was dead.

Sometimes the story doesn't end so well.  I once hit a baby deer who are sitting very still in the tall grass, doing what its mom said (WAIT HERE). But I was driving a sickle bar mower and didn't see the deer until the mower had already sliced its legs.  I was so sad and so sorry. It was going to die but it was too big for me to kill it myself. I picked it up and carried it to the edge of the field and set it down, knowing that it wasn't going to survive that.

But most of the time the interactions are benign and glancing.  So often after a heavy rain, I am on my knees, moving down the field and earthworms are just LEAPING out of the ground ("Hey! Watch out, you big lummox.  You are smashing us down here!"). No one else seems to notice this phenomenon, but it happens all the time.

You wouldn't really think there would be this much wildlife in such a developed area.  The deer are all around -- I can feel their eyes on me when I am near the edge of a shady patch of trees. Jon thinks I am making it up, but I know they are there. 

It is possible that most people have just as much wildlife in their rows, but they don't notice it. I am acutely aware of the fauna that has left tracks in the night. From two hundred yards away, I know the profile of a groundhog doing its periscope-like check, as it sits up to see what's nearby, while it methodically munches down the row of beans.

It would be a barren world without all these critters, eating in the dusk, scampering all over the black plastic in the night, pooping on the bales (why do foxes like to poop on bales so much?), gnawing on the beets that are still in the ground.  We do pretty well co-existing. And when the raccoons and woodchucks get out of hand, Jon traps them in the Havahart trap and takes them for a ride. 

My favorite are the tree frogs that sing and holler in the dark when I am down at the stand, finishing up.  They make me smile every time.  So much noise from such a teeny weeny little frog, clinging to a post.  "All God's critters got a place in the choir, some sing low, some sing higher, some sing out loud on the telephone wire. Others clap their hands or paws or anything they got."