They're out there

Sneaky snakes. This is a picture of the three and a half foot long rattlesnake that slithered off the Thomson trail into the woods. Lest you think that I, Miss Fraidy Pants, took this picture, no. Diana crept up the trail and took several pictures. Too bad I didn't think to pull the camera out of my skort pocket when I first saw the snake, when he was completely stretched across the white sand of the trail because then he would have shown up better. All you can really see in this is his thick body with its black stripes and they blend in very well with the leaves and dirt. However, my brain was not thinking about getting the verybigandevil snake's picture then. No, my brain was too busy moving me backwards down the trail away from the verybiganddeadly snake. Diana, behind me, started to trot past saying that she would shoo the snake away. HUH? I pointed out to her that this was not the veryscarybutnotdeadly black snake that we often see, but a RATTLESNAKE!! She rethought her decision. While we were having this conversation, the verybigandfierce snake slithered to his spot in the crook of the turn and Diana crept forward and the snake posed. She counted eight rattles, but that picture didn't turn out too well.

I'm such a wuss. We rode the trail backwards to the double track with the thought of doing the backside of the trail, but I couldn't bring myself to get on the single track again knowing that there was a verybigandnodoubtfatherofmanychildren snake in the woods and no doubt he'd sent out his mental telepathy signal to his many relatives and they were all lying in wait for me. Diana kindly agreed to ride around the big field with me until we got in 3 miles. I felt reasonably safe in the field. Yes, the grass may be high, but the trail is well worn and it would be easy to spot another verybigandscary snake.

Yeah, yeah, I know that I should confront my fears and the chance of seeing another snake was about as good as my winning the lottery this week, but long shots do come in. I'm with Indiana Jones on this one: I hate snakes. Bring on the furry spiders. I'm not scared of them.