Pre-Autumn Colors

Coleus, coneflower and euonymous bushes
protected by deer netting. (Margo D. Beller)

At this time of year it is hard to deny summer is finally ending.

Labor Day has been and gone. Children are either back in school or in their homes doing their learning remotely because of the continued coronavirus pandemic. It is now dark until about 6:15 a.m. and is dark again around 7 p.m. Even on warm days the evenings and overnights are cool enough to keep the air conditioner off. Several times this week the temperature will dip into the 40s for the first time in months.

Perhaps the best sign of autumn's approach is to see what is growing in the garden. It's more enjoyable to look around now that I've finished with my weeding. The late summer heat diminished the coreopsis, the coneflower and the daisies. However, now the garden is full of pinks and purples from the Rose of Sharons, the liriopes, the sedums and the big pot of 4 coleus plants I had indoors over the winter, and which grew and filled in with the summer heat.

Peppers on plant, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

There are other colors. The green of the viburnum is contrasted with the red berries growing where the flowers were too high to be browsed by deer. The berries will be eaten by birds, I hope, rather than squirrels. There are a number of green peppers that started coming in with the late-summer heat and are now very slowly turning red enough for me to pick and use. Until recently there were tomatoes ripening to gold. But now chipmunks have picked off the small, green fruits and I've brought what's left of them inside.

The green lawn is looking lusher now that it isn't being blasted by intense heat. But when MH does not get to mowing it, the long grass hosts other plants, in this case some of the nearby sensitive ferns and small locust trees growing from the root of one or more of the trees at the curb. I do not care to dig up the yard so I must depend on MH's mowing or me cutting these mini trees down with a lopper.

Rose of Sharon, a favorite with bees
(Margo D. Beller)

The birds are in transition, too. I have seen no hummingbirds at that feeder since Aug. 31. They are on the move south. Now that nesting is over and the young have left, some of the yard birds are making noise again. The cardinal calls "teek!" as it flies around the backyard, waking me at first light, and I am reminded it will soon be time to put out the feeders. Titmice are coming to the water dishes and there is still a catbird calling from the bushes. The catbird will be gone by winter. On those mornings I can make myself get up in the dark and get out to look for them, there are warblers in their autumnal coloring and other birds I haven't seen since spring, all heading south for the winter.

Unlike the spring birds, these fall migrants are mainly silent, which means I must work harder to find them as they dart around in treetops feeding on insects after a long flight to my area from their northern breeding grounds. When I can find them I am pleased, especially if I can identify them. It doesn't make it easier that I must now contend with floaters in my left eye that make me think there is something flying above me when there isn't.

There are also raptors. They migrate, too and, unlike the smaller birds, they travel by day on the warm winds called thermals that rise off ridges and mountains. The hawk watchers have been been busy doing their counting since August, and I have been lucky to see hawks, eagles, accipiters and ospreys.

Joe-Pye weed, goldenrod, ferns at Tempe Wick Reserve,
Mendham Township, NJ 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Of course, the most obvious sign of autumn's approach is the leaves starting to color. The dogwood's are going red, the apple tree has been losing leaves since the apples stopped in June and there are plenty of little yellow leaves in the street, on the lawn and tracked into the house from the locust trees. Soon the oaks, maples and elms will drop their colorful leaves and MH and I will be out with rake and tarp. So far I have not seen many locust pods so I am hopeful that, as with the apple tree this spring, this won't be a year of plenty.

I will enjoy all these garden colors for as long as possible, but I know that, inevitably, winter will return, too.

At War With Weeds

As this coronavirus pandemic continues there have been many articles published about the medical, mental and culinary benefits of gardening.

The unidentified weed that is everywhere in
my garden in 2020. (Margo D. Beller)

No one talks about weeding.

At this time of year, after several heatwaves, there is usually a short spate of time when it is suddenly cooler and less humid, a time the media weathercasters invariably call "a taste of Fall." This is when I usually walk out my front door and around my property and see where the weeds are running rampant.

I write a lot about weeds, and that is because it is frustrating to deal with them year after year. It is a Sisyphusian battle because the types of weeds growing where I don't want them will continue to come back unless I do something drastic, and even then that will be only a short-term fix. I have one area where locust trees - actual trees - are growing from a long underground root (the parent plant is at the curb) and popping up under my andromeda shrubs surrounded by Sensitive ferns (that is their name, not their demeanor). I have neither the time, energy nor back strength to disrupt this area with shovel or backhoe so I must monitor it carefully and regularly use the lopper to cut the saplings to the ground and at least slow the growth.

This grassy weed gives me the satisfaction of
clearing a large area quickly, at least until it
grows back. (Margo D. Beller)

This year there have been other weeds that started popping up everywhere in profusion, perhaps because of the cooler, wetter spring. They are in all my garden plots, taking advantage of the deer netting, requiring me to make the effort to get behind or under to get at them. Lately, they've started looking like small trees. Worse, I can't even identify them. But to paraphrase what Justice Potter Stewart once said about obscenity, I know them when I see them and I've seen them off the paths I hike. If left unchecked they WILL become trees.

And then there is my balky back, which seizes up on me at this time of year because of the effort of battling weeds. 

Every year, I sit on my low bench, lean forward and pull. After a while I realize I can't sit up. This is when I usually stop and when I painfully rise this is when the spasms begin. A few weeks ago, when there was still light at 5 a.m., I worked in the area at the side of the house (where the andromeda shrubs are) and along the front garden plots (which are more difficult to get at because of the deer netting). After that I had to stop because of work but the rest of the week got hot and humid and then we were hit by Tropical Storm Isais, which brought down a lot of tree limbs. By the time I had collected and put them at the curb, my back was plenty sore. 

This area was cleared of grassy weeds but
I can only do so much. (Margo D. Beller)

That's how things stood until last week, when a friend sent me two of the exercises she does to relieve her back pain. It made a great and immediate difference. By the weekend, when I knew I'd have more than the short time between rising and work during the week, I girded for battle (or should I say "girdled"), warmed up my back and hips (something I should've been doing all along) and went out with my gloves, pail, pruner and my walking stick, which I found to be helpful in taking my weight as I stood up or bent forward to pull out the weeds, sparing my back.
Weeds are any plants that pop up in the wrong place. I've found some weeds pull out cleanly while others break at the top and you have to use both hands to pull the rest of it, with roots, out. Even then, there might be more below. Some weeds are grassy and can at least provide the satisfaction of clearing an entire area - for a time. Other weeds are vines. Ground ivy is a particular nemesis in my yard, as is the vine I can't identify that seems particularly fond of thorny wild rose bushes. However, lately I've also been seeing more wild strawberries, which provide smaller, drier versions of the stuff you get in the market. I can live with these, and the robins and other fruit-eating birds will enjoy those I don't choose to pick for my cereal.

Wild strawberries are a weed I tolerate. (Margo D. Beller)

I should also add even nonpoisonous weeds can have consequences. The plants have natural allies - the insects that use them for shelter. I was reminded of that when both my ankles suddenly felt as tho' they were on fire. I knew the cause - the flies referred to as "no-see-ums." I was not wearing ankle braces and the flies had free rein. I may have won the war but my ankles will now itch for days to come.

Ultimately I spent three hours, in several stages, to get around the areas I wanted to clear, pulling the weeds that were crowding the plants I want growing in the areas. As I worked I could hear chickadees, a Carolina wren, some jays and a catbird mewing. I was shielded from the sun by the trees as I worked, and there was a cooling breeze. Were it not for the physical effort of weeding it would've been an enjoyable time outside.

Everything I pulled is now atop the compost pile, covering the vegetable scraps feeding the worms. I have a feeling of accomplishment, and that should last at least until the next time I walk around the yard and see what has popped up in my absence.

Atop the compost pile. (Margo D. Beller)

At some point, as the days continue to get shorter, I will be cutting back the garden for its - and my - winter rest.  As usual at this time of year, I can't wait.

Sad at Midsummer, Again

Flowers from my garden, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Every year, in late July going into August, I start feeling sad. Perhaps it is the continued heat and humidity forcing me inside with the air conditioning while the weeds proliferate. Perhaps it goes back to the days when I was a student and I knew that, come September (or August when I was in college), it would be time to go back to school and I'd lose my freedom. Or perhaps it is seeing the darkness in the early morning when it was once light, or seeing the sun's arc getting smaller as the days get shorter.

So it is this midsummer, except it is worse because this is not a normal year. It is the year of the coronavirus and things may never be the same again.

My life is one example. Doing simple things such as going to the supermarket or getting my hair cut has become more complicated. I have been working from home since March and will continue working from home through the end of the year, and likely beyond. I am OK with that. I find I am less and less comfortable walking outside where I can come into contact with people except for when I can get myself out early to walk on a trail and listen for any birds. But getting up and out is getting harder to do and I am feeling disconnected from nature. I try to go out on the weekends for a walk with MH or to run errands such as to my favorite farm market, particularly now that it is tomato season.

Tomato, basil and peppers, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

Here, too, things have become complicated. I must be masked, stand six feet from a guy behind the vegetable bins, pointing to what I want, asking it not "be so wilted." Where once zinnias and other flowers grew for picking, every inch of land is filled with a variety of vegetables. That's a good thing because this farm feeds not only casual shoppers like me but members of its CSA community plus it donates produce to local organizations feeding those who would otherwise go hungry. (But for the grace of God that could've been me, too.)

To keep myself from feeling too sad, I think of what COVID-19 hasn't changed.

My flowers - yellow coreopsis, white daisies, purple coneflowers, goldenrod and the deep red flowers of the cannas - are in bloom. If I can't pick the farm's flowers, I can selectively pick my own.

My vegetables are growing, finally. I am waiting for a dozen little green cherry tomatoes and two large, still-green Italian frying peppers to ripen, and there will be more to come. The basil continues to produce big, green leaves I pick for sandwiches and to make pesto.

Fritillary butterfly (RE Berg-Anderson)

Hummingbirds have been visiting the canna flowers in the front yard and the feeder in the back. At this time of year the females need energy to find insects to feed their young. Soon the young will need energy to hunt and may follow their mothers (the fathers will have left long before) to the feeder. The birds started coming later in July than usual but now they are more frequent visitors.

The house wrens are long gone. They and other birds will be heading south soon, if they haven't already started. Those passing through won't be as gaily colored and they won't be singing territorial songs but knowing they're out there might be just enough for me to leave the house and reconnect with the outside world, in spite of this pandemic. The birds need to head south to reach their wintering areas and what we're going through will not affect nor deter them. Those not flying as far south will be stopping (or staying) in my yard when I put the seed feeders back out after Labor Day, less than a month from now.

Monarch butterfly (RE Berg-Anderson)

Butterflies will be heading south, too. I have noticed more tiger swallowtails on the purple flowers of the butterfly bush and some of the smaller butterflies such as the fritillarys. I am waiting for the first monarch butterfly to come.

The days will get even shorter, and there will come a time all too soon when it will be dark before 5 p.m. The inevitability of that depresses me. August is my late mother's birth month and the month her mother as well as one of my good friends died. It adds to the sadness of the period, much as I try to enjoy the flowers, birds and butterflies.

I expect I'll get out of this funk eventually, as I do every year. This year it might take a little longer.

Incidental (Bird) Music

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
               --Ram Dass

In an average day, we are bombarded with a lot of noise, even in this time of coronavirus. As I work from home this summer I have a fan on and the windows closed, not just to keep the hot and humid air out and move the drier, slightly cooler air around, but to keep out the annoying noise from lawn service mowers, edgers and blowers; the roar of airplanes; the screams of children. I will likely have the radio on, too, hoping the classical music will counteract whatever stress remote work is inducing. Downstairs, MH will have the television on, scanning the news channels.

Sitting on my mother-in-law's deck, I could hear a common loon
calling from some distance away. Note the great blue heron
towards the center of this picture. (Margo D. Beller)

Unfortunately, this noise blocking also keeps out something I wouldn't mind hearing more of, the birdsong.

This is why I go out early in the morning to my porch where, despite needing a fan when it is particularly humid, I can hear birds as they go about their business. But the dawn chorus, when I can rouse myself to go out to hear it, is not as frenetic as before because the birds have long ago chosen their territories, built their nests and raised their young. If I'm lucky, I'll hear the chatter of young birds chasing after their parents and begging for food, or see a hummingbird come to the feeder for the energy she'll need to hunt insects and bring them back to her feed her young.

I call this incidental birding.

We traveled recently, to get away from the headlines and visit family in New England. Along the way I was amazed how many birds I heard from the car when we were driving the back roads. This should not have surprised me. Many years before, on a busy main street in Chicago, I heard something, crossed the street and found a goldfinch atop the traffic light. How had I heard this? Simple - I had trained myself to listen and listen hard because more times than not I have to use my ears rather than my eyes when I am out in the field once the trees leaf out.

This was one of the easier paths we followed, to a
marsh. We heard lots of birds along it. (Margo D. Beller)

So on our New Hampshire trip, with really working that hard at it, I heard many of the warblers that had passed through my neighborhood months before on their way to their breeding areas here: black and white, prairie, Blackburnian, to name a few. In a way this is more interesting birding than going out with the intent of finding birds because of the element of surprise. "What was that?" I think as I hear a snippet of bird call. "Was that what I thought it was?" One such snippet rattled around in my brain until I realized I'd heard a common loon. I'd like to think I am correct in my guessing because I have been listening - really listening - to birds for a long time.

Too often we are caught up in our own little worlds, especially now when, if the heat and humidity and hurricanes don't keep you inside, the fear of being infected with a virus does. Even before we'd ever heard of COVID-19 people have created their own soundscape by blaring their car radios or traveling with earbuds. blocking the outside world. After decades of putting up with cell phone conversations and the screeching of commuter trains and subways, it is a blessing for me to hear as little as possible for as long as I can.

When I sit on my porch - before the lawn services and the office Zoom meetings - and hear something - a robin, say, or downy woodpecker - I consider myself lucky. I sit with my coffee and enjoy the silence of the early morning, punctuated with the occasional chipping sparrow, flicker or catbird. I don't need "mindfulness" or other types of meditation, I just listen to what is or isn't going on around me. A hummingbird is a revelation. A catbird is a prayer. A cardinal is the world telling me it hasn't all gone to hell.

In short, it's my way of coping.

Midsummer Musings on Wrens

Feeding time at the wren box, July 5, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Today, as I write, it is warm but there is a breeze and the humidity is much lower than it has been in the last week. We were hit with several inches of rain from Tropical Storm Fay on Friday, which left little in the way of damage but dropped much beneficial rain for the lawn, my flowers and this year's vegetables: the four peppers (out of nine) I grew from seed, a large-leaf basil and a tomato that should be producing yellow cherry-sized fruit at some point in August.

The lower humidity is very important because that allowed me to pry MH out of the house for a long walk in a county park some distance from us. On weekends, when I am not working in my home office, I am stuck indoors and after a while the house (and I) start to feel stale. When it is not hot and humid on the weekend we can get out. But during the week, when it is seems harder to get up and out early in the muggy air, my birding is confined to my immediate property.

The vegetable plot thickens: tomato (with cage), basil (to its lower right), two pots of
peppers and (in red pot) garlic. (Margo D. Beller)

I sit on my porch; when I see a male cardinal in my neighbor's dogwood, I realize just how disassociated from nature I've been because of circumstances beyond my control. At this time of summer, the birds I'm not feeding are busy building nests or tending to young so they are not particularly visible. At the same time, I hate summer heat and humidity, which this year seems more oppressive than usual. Or perhaps that is because of the time we're in, this plague of coronavirus. It has made me fearful to even walk around the block for fear of crossing paths with someone who is not wearing a mask or does not want to give me space. Aside from the occasional errand I run when the pressures of work drive me out of the house (in my car), I stay indoors.

Still, I shouldn't complain. MH and I are healthy. Our home state of NJ went through hell during the early days of the pandemic and now cases seem to be on the decline. I am gainfully employed and can do my job from home.

And during the week I can watch the house wrens.

House wren about to fly out after feeding young, 2020.
(Margo D. Beller)

The fledglings are growing by the minute. The parents have been shuttling back and forth to the box, either bringing in insects or taking out wren poop to keep the inside of the box clean. At the time I took the pictures of the wrens you see in this post, the young were still small enough for the parents to enter the box and feed them. Now, a week later, the young are so big the parents must feed them from outside the box.

The young call loudly as soon as they can see one or both parents bringing the food. The parents are equally loud whenever I step off the porch and walk outside. This year's wrens are lucky, they haven't had to contend much with squirrels in the apple tree. But they seem more protective. When the wren parents see me when I come out to, say, refill the water dish, they scold incessantly to warn the young to stay quiet or drive me away or both.

I do not know how many chicks are in the box (there can be anywhere from three to 10 in a clutch, according to Cornell's Ornithology Lab) but, as with all birds, the ones that are assertive and push their way to the front get fed, those that don't get weak and die. However, at least once recently I've seen a parent get into the box, perhaps to feed one of those in the back. With this box the size it is, I can't believe there'd be any more than three in there.

(Margo D. Beller)

The nesting period is about two weeks, which means that if all goes well the young may fledge next week. That, however, will be about the time we travel to see another type of fledgling, our grand-nephews. I'll be leaving the box out all summer. The birds, including the house wrens, have other things on their minds than heat, humidity and coronavirus. There may soon be a second brood in the box. Stranger things have happened this year.

Apple Tree Watching

You can observe a lot by just watching.
              -- Yogi Berra

The squirrel walks through the long grass stealthily, gets close to the apple tree, then leaps to the main trunk. It is a small squirrel, so let us presume it is a female. She climbs up the trunk into thicker canopy until she appears on one of the smaller branches as she climbs to the top of the tree. She raises her head and sniffs as she seeks an apple.

(Margo D. Beller)

Nearby, a house wren sings, warning his mate of the potential danger. She is in the nest box hanging in this tree. On this cool, early morning she is sitting on eggs, fed occasionally by her mate. She's not going anywhere unless the squirrel shakes the branches and jostles the nest box while looking for apples. A flicker explores the nooks and crannies of the wooden flood wall at the edge of the yard, and a family of noisy titmice are in the oak trees, following a parent around and begging for food.

The squirrel, meanwhile, has gone up one branch, found nothing and then backtracked to climb another branch. Finally, again near the top, she snares a small apple and climbs down to eat it sitting in the crotch made by two thicker branches. 

2020 crop (Margo D. Beller)

She is hidden from most people (and predators) but I know where she is because I have been sitting in my chair in a corner of my patio and watching her progress. I know what will happen and I am not proved wrong. She finishes her breakfast and drops the core with just enough apple on it to draw the interest of a chipmunk, perhaps a bird, more likely a deer that passes through the yard later. 

That's why I go pick it up and toss it into a corner of the yard to keep deer out of this area so near to my plants.

Now, a second squirrel approaches and climbs. When it is up a ways I walk to the tree and look up. The squirrel freezes. We look at each other, then I step back and the second squirrel jumps down and rushes away. The first one, meanwhile, is so high up I have to walk back somewhat to see it. She seems to know I am not the type to climb trees. She will be looking in this tree a while because there are not many apples in it this year.

Unusual for an apple tree, mine produces fruit in late June going into July. If all things were "normal" the apples would get bigger, redder, sweeter and I'd have three weeks to go out at dawn and dusk to gather them before the squirrels and deer.

Plenty of blossoms earlier this year. (Margo D. Beller)

Last year, we had a bumper crop both of apples and squirrels, sometimes as many as six at a time in the tree, all dropping partially eaten apples.

But in this year of coronavirus, which has changed everything about life as we know it, the apple tree blossomed beautifully in spring but did not put out a lot of fruit. The coronavirus has nothing to do with it, but it seems apt that this year would turn out to be a bust year. 

Many trees go through booms and busts. In my yard that also includes oaks, elms and locusts. Last year was very good for oak acorns. They fell to the lawn continuously as the squirrels climbed along the branches. Some would sound like gunshots when they hit the metal porch roof. I left them alone for a while until I started putting out feeders again in the autumn and it was hard walking on the acorns (or their caps, once the nut was removed). I raked up as many as I could and put them into a corner of the yard behind the compost pile. They are still there.

What the squirrels are dropping nowadays.
(Margo D. Beller)

According to John C. Kricher and Gordon Morrison, authors of the "Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Forests," many types of trees in the temperate zone, which includes New Jersey, have "mast" years when seed production is higher than usual.

Why? "Masting is probably an adaptation to aid the trees in escaping the potential ravages of seed predators. By alternating between occasional bumper crops and more usual poor crops, trees conserve energy, enabling them in a given year to produce more seeds than all seed predators combined could ever hope to eat," they write.

So the apple tree might be taking a breather this year to protect itself.

Unfortunately, it is too easy to underestimate the importance of trees, their ability to clean the air and provide shade and food. About 36 million trees a year are cut down, according to one report. I know I see enough of that destruction in suburbia when a tree that took several decades to grow is taken down, hunk by hunk, in a day. (Was the tree sick, planted in the wrong place or just in the way? Who knows?)

Meanwhile, those that need acorns (or apples) to survive, breed and feed young (squirrels, jays and other birds) are going to have a harder time of it this year, as will the raptors that feed on those animals. When snowy owls or rough-legged hawks can't find their favorite small mammals in their northern breeding territories because the population has "crashed," they fly farther south to find food. That is known as an irruption year. Smaller birds that depend on cone and other seed crops can have irruption years, too, including both types of crossbills, pine grosbeaks and redpolls, to the delight of the bird-watching community. 

Gone for now, but it - or a descendant - will be back next year. (Margo D. Beller_

But that's winter. Right now, in June, I was only able to pick 10 apples this year, but I am happy to be relieved of the annual routine of chasing off deer, picking up chewed apples, trying to find apples I could use and then the long process of cutting off the bad stuff and making apple sauce with the rest. As for the squirrels, they have turned their attention to getting other things to eat, including gathering oak acorns. What is falling so far this year are shrunken and not nearly big enough to feed them, much less a family.  

Most happily, this year I won't be going around the tree smacking ripe apples with an extension pole and agitating the house wrens in the nest box. Once the squirrels get the last few apples from the very top of the tree (where I couldn't get at them anyway), that's it until next year. And next year the nest box is going into another tree.

My Friend, Mr. Slither

First appearance of Mr. Slither.
(Margo D. Beller)

When the Cooper's hawks abandoned the nest they had worked on for weeks in an oak tree just off my backyard, I was relieved a predator was gone so the birds could continue to visit my feeders. But I was also disappointed. I had hoped the hawks might've indulged in some chipmunk dining. These rodents dig everywhere and regularly ravage my plantings. 

But it turns out this year Mother Nature provided me with some relief - a garter snake, so named because tits striping makes it resemble stocking garters. 

MH likes to joke about the first time I, a city kid, encountered one of these harmless snakes found all over the eastern U.S. We were hiking in the woods and I thought I was about to step over a stick. The stick moved. Snakes were not something I grew up with in Brooklyn, NY, Snakes were dangerous, one bite and you're a gonner. But MH knew these snakes from the NJ suburbs when one would occasionally come into his basement bedroom. Harmless, he assured me, not like NJ's timber rattlesnakes or copperheads.

Second appearance, photographed from inside looking down.
(Margo D. Beller)

Since then, I've looked upon garter snakes as a friend, not a foe. I've even rescued one caught in the deer netting. I got my gloves and scissors, carefully cut it out of the netting, grabbed it by the middle (while not poisonous, these snakes still bite) and put it in the lawn to cut away as much of the netting from its middle as possible. So I guess I've earned the right to call myself a snake handler. I walked to my front door and the snake moved off.

Except for the occasional garter snake I've encountered in my walks, I hadn't seen one until recently. I soon learned Mr. Slither had had an immediate effect on the chipmunks.

Not only did the chipmunk backfill its tunnel, it even
added a small rock. (Margo D. Beller)

One warm late afternoon I opened the front door to check the mailbox and there, on the paving blocks, lay a garter snake basking in the sun. Being a reptile, it can't regulate its body heat as well as we mammals so it found a place to warm itself. Where it sat happened to be near the opening of a known chipmunk tunnel.

We have pavers lining our front walkway. Long ago MH attempted a project and then could not get all the blocks back in as they were. There were some gaps where there were no pavers. Last year an enterprising chipmunk realized it had found a way to tunnel into one of my netted garden plots, ideal because the netting keeps out most predators like hawks. I would fill in the tunnel, the chipmunk would dig it out again. This went on for some time. Finally, I just left it. It didn't impede anyone coming into or out of the house but I would think of ways to get rid of the chipmunks, some involving dynamite.

The other day I came outside and discovered the hole had been filled in, and not by me.

Snake hiding place (Margo D. Beller)

I can guess why. Mr. Slither was still around. 

He showed up in a different garden plot, which I discovered only by accident when I bent down to pull out some weeds. I went inside to look down on it through the window. The snake was fascinating to watch. The tongue would flick, its head would bob, its body would undulate and it would move. It tested whether it could get out of the area if necessary, then rested. I let it be and at dusk it had left to find shelter for the night.

That got me wondering - was the area under the bay window, which is filled with years' worth of leaves I can't really get to without great effort, a suitable home? 

I didn't see the snake for a while after that. But this week, getting ready to come back into the house after a bit of garden cleanup, I saw movement in the leaves just off my front door, near the bay window overhang. I thought it was a chipmunk, but the snake quietly slithered away to the area under the window.

I am guessing that with a known predator in the area, the chipmunk abandoned the tunnel, or at least backfilled that entrance to keep the snake from sliding in for a meal. (This garter snake is not that big. Garter snakes, such as the one I cut out of the deer netting, can grow much larger.)

Snakes can be helpful in the garden. Besides scaring away the chipmunks they can eat many of the insects that harm plants. And it's a really cool-looking creature. As long as Mr. Slither stays outside, we can co-exist.

Garter snakes can get quite large but the one in my yard is not as big as this
one I saw sunning itself on a nature center boardwalk. (Margo D. Beller)

Of course, there is always the chance Mr. Slither is really Ms. Slither and suddenly 20 to 40 baby garter snakes (or perhaps more) will appear in and around the garden. That would definitely be too much of a good thing.