Pacific Northwest Gardening: Tillys acer part 2, 1 by

wrote:
Well here you go, Tills! I took this photo of this beautiful snake, the name of which escapes me so just call him Fred, down in Utah when we went tromping around the desert looking for cool stuff. He was one of the cool things we found. Isn't he a beauty? I do know he is not poisonous, but he took me a little aback as I recall because I was squatting down looking at plants and didn't see him at first. That vacation was just terrific. I hope to go back.

I do not recall if horny toads 'sleep' when you rub their tummies, but I think they do. It's been a long time since I did that!

So here is a story to give you the creeps: My dh is from Tennessee and when we visit we go to Reelfoot lake, which is a man made lake that is actually more of a swamp. It is shallow with many cypress trees and lots of bass, apparently, and catfish. There is a boardwalk out into the swampy area. The last time we were there, while we were visiting, there was a tornado. A couple of days after the storm we went to Reelfoot Lake for the day and walked on the boardwalk. As we were walking I began to realize that everywhere I looked there were snakes. I mean LITERALLY! There were hundreds of snakes everywhere: some in the water, some coiled up on logs . They were mostly big water snakes and water moccasins. I was simply too amazed to be creeped out, but then later, when I thought of it, I was totally creeped out! It was like something out of a horror movie. Also, I had reached down into the water to pick up a baby turtle and had not realized at that point how many snakes there were. Probably a good thing. I guess the snakes had been disturbed by the storm and were hanging out together until everything settled down again.