Warning! A Snake Photo.......

A month ago I received a letter from the energy company that I needed to remove my snakes from my basement stairwell.  The meter reader would not read it and just made an estimate that month.  Since then I have patched holes in  my concrete steps and any places along the old trim boards around the old entrance to the basement door.  The garter snakes liked that place as the concrete is always cool and damp and it is dark when the outside door is closed.

Before I repaired all the holes and cracks I would open the door and the snakes would crawl into the holes temporarily to hide until I was gone.  Now when I open the door they can't slither away and hide.  I can pick them up with the pooper scooper and put them in a tall wastebasket.  I then put them in the garbage bin to send them to the landfill.  Since I have fixed the cracks and holes I  have been able to capture five snakes.   The mother snake I had to catch twice as she figure out how to get out of my tall wastebasket.  All the small baby snakes I  have succeeded in only having to catch once.  When I dropped the little fellow above into the large town garbage bin I noticed the other one I had captured over the weekend was still alive and doing well.  They have each others' company now.  I will be curious to see if this one is the last one that I have finally caught them all.

In the middle of the summer I turned this rain barrel upside down and washed it out for the next rain.  Finally a month and a half later look what I have.  Usually an inch rain will fill this and we received less than a half an inch a couple of days ago.  I have clean clear rainwater again. The illusion doesn't really tell you that it is half full of water.

I was surprised to see this hollyhock looking so healthy out at the corner of my lot.  The redtwig dogwood covers the view of it unless I would drive by to see it.  I had to share the flower with two bumble bees who looked desperate for food.  The one you can see reaching way down into the flower for nectar.  Another bee was beneath a petal of the flower there to the right.  He had pushed the petal aside to get in towards the base of the flower. You can see the flower petal is shoved up and barely one black leg of the bee is showing in the picture.

I am making a list of things to do today as I ended up being unemployed today.  I was to be a one on one associate today with a student and as I arrived at school ready to go I was told his mother called in sick for the boy.  I have decided that I will get things done today that I have been putting off for some time.  I hope to have everything crossed off the list before our predicted thunder storms arrive.

I don't like severe storms but the rain will be so welcomed.  Middle Iowa seems to have been missing all the rains that the north and south part of the state  have been receiving.  Thanks for stopping by today.