Showing posts with label snakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snakes. Show all posts

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Well, I am back in business...I think. The computer is fine. I haven't even begun to move files and photos yet. That will come. As some of you know, I came down with shingles at the beginning of February, and even though I saw a doctor right away and got medication to lessen the severity, I still am having a bit of pain around my midsection. When my doctor gave me a prescription for a month's supply of pain medicine and made it refillable 6 times, I figured I was in it for the duration.

While the pain is lessening, it is still annoying, and the medication really doesn't help a lot, even though it is for nerve pain. I haven't been a very good sleeper for the last little while, and it is even more so now. Last night as I lay in bed, trying to relax and go to sleep, nothing seemed to work. I had lots of things go through my mind, and as they passed through, I thought to myself, "Now that would make a good blog post." However, I did not get up and write them all down, but one did remain.

Those of you who have been around for a while know that I was widowed 8 years ago on April 30, and I have lived alone since that time until October when Sarah sold her house and moved back in with me. During these eight years, I've never been afraid of being along. I have a secure home with an alarm system and I have not had cause for concern.

Just the other day, SRP of Melange wrote a post that had a photo of a frog in it, and in my comment I described an occurrence at my house and later thought to myself that I should blog about that. As I said, I feel secure in my home and have not been afraid.

However...one night I turned out the light and settled down for a good night's rest, when, all of a sudden, I heard something fall to the floor in my bedroom. I was a tad alarmed, but I decided not to get up. In a moment or two, I heard another soft thud on the floor, and I decided it was time to get up and attend to the matter at hand.

I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, and on the far wall of my bedroom I saw a blob on the wall. After I put on my glasses, I could see that it was a tree frog, fastened to the wall by those sticky pads on his feet. He had jumped up onto the windowsill, and in doing so, had knocked off some wooden figures that I had set there.

Now, I like frogs and am not afraid of them, but I didn't want him jumping down on me, plop, in the middle of the night. So, downstairs I came, got a box, got the frog in the box, and took him outside on the front porch and released him to the wild outdoors of Florida.

I'm not sure if I went to sleep right away. I do know that I would have thought nothing of it compared to the morning I went downstairs and saw a long black snake lying across the French doors that go out to the pool.
Such is life in Florida. You didn't really want to come, now did you.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Unwanted visitors

In a post a while ago, I wrote about taking the garbage out late one night. I moved the garbage can, and underneath it was a little snake, just a grass snake I thought. When he saw him, he coiled up and got ready to strike. I know that the snakes can only strike the length of their bodies, so I wasn't too frightened, but I did cut him in two pieces with a shovel. I'm assuming it was a pygmy rattler.

Kenju wrote in her post today about a boarder who seems to have taken up residence under her deck. This in turn has attracted a fox who seems to be interested.

Neither of these visitors compares with the visitor in the video below. It was on our local news this past week.