Bits and Pieces, Plus A Missed Opportunity

I don't have a photograph of the Indigo Snake that poked his neck out from under my old dead GMC pickup in the backyard yesterday, and you might have thought it was April Fools day if I did.

You might have doubted my veracity and suspected I had photoshopped the snake to make it appear as big as it was.
So maybe it's better that I don't.

Not.

I have seen a lot of indigo snakes ... even posted a few visits with them here on Pure Florida.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE LIKE THE ONE BENEATH THE TRUCK YESTERDAY.
NEVER. EVER. NEVER.

You feel me?

I came around the corner of the truck on my way to feed the shrimp and there he was with about two feet of head and neck sticking out from under the truck.

We both froze.
Because I had just stopped powerwashing and was soaking wet, my camera was 100 feet away from me in the front yard.

He tucked back under the truck.

I got down on my knees to peer under there and oh mother of herpetology, there were thick coils of beautiful black indgo snake, one upon the other ... it was breathtaking.

A big empty plastic barrel was a few feet away by the aquaculture tank. If I moved it closer, I could catch him just long enough for a photo, and then release him.

I turned, walked 5 feet, grabbed the barrel, returned to the truck, and he was gone.

I did a quick search in radiating circles, but it was hopeless.

My place is indigo heaven ... A nearby shed sits up on blocks with a armadillo burrow beneath it, there is an active gopher burrow 30 feet away, a brush pile even closer, next to the truck is a 5 x 10 foot BBQ deck with space underneath, ten feet away is a downed tree trunk with tall grass and the jungle of blueberry bushes adjoining it, and surrounding everything ... woods and more gopher burrows.

Lost cause.

So you probably won't believe me when I say this snake may have been between 7 and 8 feet long.
That's okay. I don't blame you.

The bright spot is, there's no reason for him to leave ... and there is a great chance that he was living under PFHQ and all of our noisy powerwashing disturbed him.

I think we will meet again.


This is a beautiful pawpaw, one of our low growing varieties. Don't ask me which one, because the red is throwing me off.
It's pretty similar to our flag pawpaw that you see as short clouds of white in cattle pastures. Pawpaw leaves are unpalatable so the cows crop all around them, but leave them be. When they bloom, the green pasture is punctuated by clusters of white blooms.


It's pretty whoever's Paw it is.
This one is growing out of the rockpile around the Waterfolly koi pond where it is quite welcome.
If you know this variety, feel free to chime in.


Spider lily (rescued from a road department ditch scraping).

This spider lily lives in my livestock water trough "pond" out in the garden. For a year or so, it has sat there as a couple of green leaves, biding it's time. A few weeks ago, it pushed up a flower bud spike, so I knew something was afoot.

At 4:00 pm on the day of the bloom, the bud was still closed.

About an hour later, I was walking by and it looked like you see in the photo.
Just amazing.

In other news, ... I was absent from PF yesterday due to the continueing face lift of PFHQ.
I should be clear that I am not doing this alone. Mrs. FC has been out there sweating too and in the years since the last exterior redo, Junior has grown from pudgy little boy to strong helper guy ... so I put him to work.

Actually he loves powerwashing ... I think we all do in this weather. Being wet while you are working makes it the fun job and we all covet the position.
Sure, you get splattered with mud dauber nest dirt, spider webs, and gunk, but at least you are cool.

He's having fun ... no really, I'm serious.





And the last little bit of this "Bits and Pieces" post is a few seconds of video from last Thursday's kayak trip.
The video starts near the top of the food web and drops down near the bottom.

Enjoy.