Down by the Pond

Yesterday began dark and wet with buckets of rain pouring from the sky -- of course, that was to be expected as it was my day off ;) Mother Nature noted my distress and finally took pity on me around noon. The skies cleared from solid gray to intense blue sprinkled liberally with puffy white clouds. Yipee! The day was not going to be a total wash-out after all.

First on our ever-growing list of chores was returning our friend's tractor to him. The trip is only about 7 miles but it takes about 45 minutes to accomplish. You can see a lot of things when you are cruising along at 12 miles an hour. For instance, Treebeard, from his perch atop the tractor, saw a long-nosed gar on the shoulder of the road. For those of you who may not be familiar, a long-nosed gar is a fish and this one was a whopper. We weren't near any bodies of water at the time so one has to wonder just how this fish ended up on the side of the road. One of those mysteries that will never be solved...

Once we got the tractor safely back we decided to stop by the millpond before returning home to deal with the 21 tons of pea gravel we recently purchased. We poked around the shore line for a bit and checked out the rocks along the spillway. Nestled among the rocks was a very pretty Eastern Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula getula). He had a somewhat unusual pattern so I took numerous pictures.

The Blue Flag (Iris virginica) was blooming along the edge of the pond. The many frogs hanging out amongst 'em declined to be photographed. There were cricket frogs, green treefrogs, green frogs and southern leopard frogs...but you'll just have to take my word for it.

Ah, green...my favorite color!

Batteries recharged, Treebeard and I returned home to shovel gravel and work in the yard.
Life is good.