Herding Snakes

I haven't been posting recently I know. Too busy trying to catch up now that the weather has dried up and warmed up. but also, my camera has died. I want to put pictures of what we're up to and can't. I hope this doesn't mean buying a new camera but it well might. I hate being without one.

In the garden we got the corn planted finally and the tomato and pepper plants are going out tonight or tomorrow. Squash is planted through holes in black plastic in an area that has become infested with Canadian thistle. The black plastic works in two ways: it heats up the soil for the squash and kills the thistles at the same time. We get several years out of a sheet of the stuff as we get heavy duty type and so move it around. When we picked it up today to move there were lots of garter snakes under it. They love black plastic so it actually does triple duty by providing shelter for the snakes that eat slugs and other bugs. Anyway, the snakes were all slithering around frantically as we moved the plastic so I found myself herding snakes back under it when it was laid out. Several got up on the plastic and then just couldn't get anywhere. They were flailing around but without legs couldn't get a purchase on the plastic. These I gently picked up by their tails and showed them how to get underneath. So I spent a delightful time this afternoon herding snakes.