Love of Lizards! 4-29

Ian LOVED his blanket.

We've had a busy weekend.  Yesterday we spent the day in Ukiah getting our grandkid fix.  We hit the road by 7:30.  We stopped to see Larry's Mom first and caught the Sandoval crew before they left and got to play with our youngest niece who was a smiley girl.  We went to Ian's Little League game and I got some good pictures of him which I'll post later.  We had a wonderful dinner after the game prepared by Andrea and Scott and we were on the road back home around 8 p.m.  We were in our bed by midnight.


Today was laundry day and I did some weed whacking around the iris.  The first iris of the season unfurled this morning.  Larry worked on the shed.

The iris is there at the top of the little stairs
and up on the hill to the left of the oak tree
are clumps of wild iris.

I was going to pull a few weeds out of our gravel when I heard a rustle of the dry oak leaves under the stairs.  A medium lizard rushed out and ran along the base of the foundation.  I had scared him and he runs along and then jumps onto the cinder block piece under the rain gutter down spout, but as soon as he did he does a quarter turn and jumps in the air hitting his head on the upper edged of the down spout.  I not only saw him hit but I heard his poor little head hit the metal, he then makes a leap up onto the side of the house, seemed to rest a moment and then ran around the corner of the house to land behind the rosemary.

This was taken after the excitement so
you could see what I was talking about.

I chuckled over the funny episode but it struck me as odd the more I thought about it.  In looking at the scene from where I had witnessed it I was thinking that that was an oddly colored circle on the surface of the cinderblock that the lizard had landed on so I wander over.  W E L L, the coloration of the cinderblock was a small snake with the classic scary coloration of a rattlesnake and as it was in the shade I hollered for Larry to come check it out...plus if it turned out to not be a harmless gopher snake, it wasn't going to be me moving the thing.  Larry scooted it out and sure enough a baby foot long rattlesnake.  WHICH explains the shocked jump of the lizard....hahahaha....landing on a snake must have scared the crap out of that lizard...I think he was on the wall checking out what he had jumped on and was thanking his lucky stars.


I am thankful that I have learned to pay attention to nature's signs, see patterns and listen to my intuition and I hope it continues to serve me well.  I know rattlesnakes have their benefits, I just wish that they would give our two acres a wide berth.  I will have to be really cautious and not run around in sandals like I love to do.

The clematis is going crazy...this flower is as big
as my hand.