Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Yesterday evening my husband and I went to the park in order to try and get some pictures of the mama duck and her babies that we had seen there the day before.

After we successfully captured them on film my husband went off to explore a different part of the pond, and I stood at the railing just enjoying the beauty of the evening.

Unfortunately my reverie was rudely interrupted by the words that chill me to the bone and fill me with dread, even more than, “We’re out of Coke,” or, “If this were a math problem“: “Oh, look, A SNAKE!” (emphasis mine).

Of course I looked, and of course it was much, much worse than I thought. Because not only was there a snake somewhere in the general vicinity, there was a snake lying right next to my foot which foolishly was clad only in my Birkenstock sandals, which meant that my feet were mostly uncovered, which meant that the snake and all of the skin on my feet were sharing The Exact Same Air at The Exact Same Time, which meant that basically, the snake and I were touching!

So after levitating directly up off of the ground and into the air using only the power of utter horror, I found my husband and managed to convey to him the urgency of the situation.

“Snake. SNAKE. SNAKE!!”

Or so I thought.

Apparently, since there wasn’t a snake actually connected to me in any way, he thought I was only upset that someone had detected a snake somewhere within a 100-mile radius of where I was currently located. And being a guy (who thinks that things like snakes are cool), he decided that we had enough time before we fled the scene for him to go and look at the snake, along with the father and son (of course, more guys) who had originally detected its presence and were even now cheerfully following its progress through the grass.

So when he finally caught up to me in the parking lot he relayed the conversation that he and the other man had shared.

My husband: “He said, ‘Yeah, that lady didn’t even know it, but she was standing right next to that snake’.”
Me: “I KNOW! THAT WAS ME! I’M ‘THAT LADY’!”

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I live outside of Atlanta, in one of the many suburbs here in Northern Georgia. We do see a lot of wildlife here, but it is all pretty much what I consider to be Regular Wildlife. Things like dogs, cats, birds, squirrels (the bane of my cat, Tigger’s, existence), lizards, rats, and snakes. Anything else I classify as Exotic (what can I say? I’m a city girl.)

Once when he was mowing the lawn my husband found a turtle and called me outside to come and see it. I was fascinated with the turtle, and stared at it for a very long time, much like an infant who has just discovered that, “Wow! Not only do I have a foot, but I can put the entire thing in my mouth whenever I want to!” I insisted on taking pictures of it before we released it into the wild (AKA-the other side of our backyard fence), and I often wonder what happened to it and where it went after it left us.

However we do live next door to a great couple with a fabulous backyard garden. I refer to it as “The Corn”, because to me it is exactly like the magical cornfield in the movie, “Field of Dreams”: you never know just what might come walking out of there.

When we first moved into our house 7 years ago, before they built the neighborhood behind us, it was not uncommon to see the occasional deer amble by my window. And (and this is my favorite), there are rabbits that live back there. One of my favorite moments each year is the first time I see the bunnies again in spring. Unfortunately for my husband, this year’s moment occurred while we were talking on the phone. “BUNNIES!” I announced, causing him to temporarily lose all hearing so that the rest of our conversation had to be conducted via smoke signals.

I love the rabbits, especially when they come over to our backyard for a visit. So much so that all last summer I did nothing but watch as they devoured Every. Single. Hosta in our backyard. My attitude was not so much irritation as fascination: “Can they really fit an entire hosta leaf in their mouth all at once?” (Important Side Note: Yes, they can!)

So yesterday I was once again sitting in my office talking on the phone, when I saw something out the window that caused me to utter a very loud expletive. One that would have been appropriate if, say, masked intruders had suddenly entered my home and forced me, at gunpoint, to work on a math problem. Because all of a sudden, from out of The Corn there appeared…A Fox. A FOX! Right here in my suburban neighborhood!

It was so cool, and when I told my friend on the phone she thought it was cool too. But she lives in Colorado, and in my mind I imagine that (being part of The West) as a place where you can routinely find foxes ambling down the street, along with tumbleweed, coyotes, and men in chaps with big gold “Sheriff” stars pinned to their leather vests.

And the best part? She said that, to her knowledge, they are not carnivores. But they might eat rodents. And possibly even the occasional snake.

So there you have it. Our own little circle of life.