Whenever I see an item like this disc of concrete that looks like it's been in place for a while, I assume there are some interesting critters beneath it. I wasn't disappointed. When I turned it over, ...
a young garter snake came to life. At first he just coiled up, as if to hide, but then decided to seek cover and took off across the lawn. As I was taking pictures of him as he tunneled through the grass, I thought of the phrase which is the title of today's post. I don't like the phrase because it assumes an attitude about snakes that I think is incorrect. Snakes don't pretend to be friends then double-cross. They are not the least bit devious. They're quite direct and honest about their intentions. Like most well-adjusted creatures, they like to eat, sleep, mate, and avoid trouble.
I don't know if it was memory or the sense of smell that guided the snake back to his original hiding place, or close to it. As I followed along with the camera, he crawled about ten feet onto the lawn away from the concrete disc, then made a U-turn and came back to the place where I found him.
When I disturbed the disc again, he then crawled under an adjacent rock. Never tried to bother me, just wanted to be left in peace. I then went back to the concrete disc as I thought I had seen several other interesting critters under it, but got distracted by the snake which was more exciting. I did find some interesting invertebrates there. I'll put photos of them in my next post.
This is sweet. Thank you so much for writing it.
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