When I think about the things that Butterfly and I say and do when we’re trotting along on our daily (ok, almost daily) walks, it’s enough to make me chuckle and shake my head … and be glad that no one is there to witness it. But what the heck – let me share with you!
Just the other morning, the usual suspects were leading the way. That would be Hellan, Lucky and Carly. Celony was trotting beside us on her leash. Barney, as usual, was bringing up the rear. He’s very easily distracted by every bug, flower and cow pie along the way.
I suddenly notice the leaders sniffing at something in the grass alongside the road and then jumping back. That’s rattlesnake talk if I’ve ever seen it.
“Quick! Snake!! Grab the dogs!!!” I yelled to Butterfly, as I dragged Celony away and started calling dogs.
“Dogs! Come! Ici!” I snagged Barney on his way by. Butterfly gathered up Hellan and Lucky.
Upon closer inspection, I could see rattles in the dry grass, but no movement. Nice try, Mr. Snake, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I moved the dogs out of the way and left them in Butterfly’s care. Back to the snake I went. Still no movement.
“Looks like he’s dead, but I can’t figure out why. There’s no blood, no squished parts,” I told Butterfly. “I need a stick. Where’s my snake pole when I need it?”
I found a wooden stake by the side of the road and used it to scoop up the rattler. He definitely appeared to be dead or, at the very least, in a deep coma. I needed to take a picture.
“Here,” I said to Butterfly, “hold this so I can take a picture.”
Butterfly is nothing if not a good sport. She’ll do just about anything I tell her.
“If he moves, drop that like a hot potato and run like a little girl!”
“I don’t think he’s going to move. He sure is a nice looking snake,” she observed.
I think his jaw is askew. Probably someone ran over his head. How mean can you get? If rattlers can’t live out here in the middle of freaking nowhere, where the heck can they live? Here we have lost one more rodent controller … sigh …
Being that Butterfly’s a little mite, and the snake on the end of the stick was getting heavier by the moment, she couldn’t stop him from swaying in the breeze, so I had to put him back down on the road to get his rattles into focus.
Now what to do with the body?
We decided to hang him in a tree, where we noted that he lasted for exactly two walking days. We never saw his body again after that. Probably the turkey vultures made short work of him.
Given that it’s very hot, dusty and dry in this part of California, we make our daily trek with the dogs to a neighbor’s well. This is handy because I only have to carry a water bowl for them, as opposed to a gallon of water. Do you know how much a gallon of water weighs? A lot, let me tell you!
This trek is not for weenies – it’s a couple of miles up a very steep hill, and is an excellent work out. Everyone is thirsty by the time we arrive at our drinking station. When we’re having our 100+ days, we make these walks at day break (6:15 am or so) to beat the heat. At that time of morning it’s only in the 70s. For those who don’t know Fahrenheit, those are 38+C days, and 21C mornings.
So on this particular morning, as the dogs are drinking and enjoying caramels (Butterfly’s name for cow pies), she says to me, “I can’t believe you don’t have any pictures of those rocks over there. They’re pretty interesting.”
PING goes the virtual light bulb that hovers at all times over my head.
She must have heard it, too, because the next thing to come out of her mouth was, “Oh, no, I am not getting up there! You get up there and I’ll take pictures of you!”
Mind you, I hadn’t yet said a word. I just snickered and started walking towards said rocks.
“Come on, Butterfly, we have work to do!”
“Really,” she said, “let me take pictures of you!”
“Right,” I said, “you who couldn’t take in-focus pictures with an auto-focus camera to save your life? I don’t think so. We haven’t got all day. Just get on the rock.”
“No!” she protested, as I started pushing her up the face of a rock the size of a car.
Now, I’m exaggerating slightly when I say she can’t take an in-focus picture. She has taken a few over the years, and she has gotten better since I gave her a digital camera of her own with which she has practiced. This one is a particular favorite of mine:
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me, Hellan, Roofus, Barney
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I’m pretty sure it was purely accidental, but I love it all the same. We titled it “Ears”!
But back to the rock story; I don’t know if this is a natural formation or man-made with somebody’s tractor. Regardless, it was begging to be photographed, according to Butterfly.
She’s no rock-climber so it took a combination of her scrambling and me pushing to get her up on the top of these two rocks, with her protesting loudly the entire time, and me laughing hysterically. I wish I could have videoed what we were doing. She was glad I couldn’t. She kept complaining that she was going to lose her balance and take a tumble. I told her to give me time to get in position with my camera to make sure I could capture it for my blog.
I don’t know why I turned my back for a moment, because when I turned around to look at her she was just finishing a gold medal performance on the balance beam.
Clearly the woman had watched way too many hours of Olympics gymnastics coverage. She was delusional.
And what, may I ask, are those white palms all about?
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The glare off her palms was killing me
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I have tried and tried to get her to use sunscreen since she spends hours each day out in the garden. Do you think this photographic evidence will convince her? Nah, I don’t think so either.
