lotesse | (no subject)

A thing I have achieved in my yard this spring that is wonderful: I have made the best nest, inadvertently, for garter snakes, and they've moved in and are having babies!

We had an area with a big decaying hardwood tree stump in the side yard, and, earlier this spring, I realized that it was almost entirely rotted away, leaving a bit of a sunken area. So I dug it out properly, filled in it with old twigs and then covered with good garden soil, ringed the new garden with fieldstone, and planted some wildflowers (violet, lupine, queen anne's lace, cosmos, & late iris bulbs from the grocery checkout).

The snakes *love* it. They seem to have a house under the earth of the garden that i see them descending into, and they bask on the stones and in the dark soil. We've always had a few incidental garter snakes, but since I built the little dead tree garden, the population has definitely increased. The snakes seem to head for the dead tree garden, preferentially, when disrupted.

I'm having to be very careful and polite when mowing the lawn! Delightful problem to have.

Yesterday, as if in reward, they left me two intact shed snakeskins, like long ghostly ribbons.