Friday, May 23, 2014

Morning walk with Baby Dog

Milk snake
Baby Dog and I took a walk this morning along portions of Roundtop Mtn. that I don’t usually have time to visit on a weekday. But this morning no rain or thunderstorms deterred us. The puppies are off for a day being neutered and spade, and we had the morning to ourselves. The change to our routine was a good one.

Baby Dog was the first to see the snake, a milk snake I believe, perhaps just a bit shy of 2-feet long. I’m not sure Baby Dog had ever seen a snake before. Certainly she’d never seen one slithering quickly across the dirt road in front of her before. She was forced to bark at it, of course, but was wary enough to keep a reasonable distance away. I managed one quick photo before it disappeared into the grass.

Later, I came across a nice little grouping of fleabane, likely Philadelphia fleabane. The only difference I can see between this flower and daisy fleabane is that Philadelphia fleabane tends more to the lavender shade than daisy fleabane, which is usually white or just barely tinged with lavender.

The sweet song of Baltimore orioles accompanied us throughout our early morning walk. A least 6 different males, sang from every corner of the mountain. Who needs an iPod when the orioles’ song follows me everywhere I go?

Tonight the puppies will be back home, and our quiet time together will be over. Baby Dog misses the puppies, and I had to tell her that will be back soon enough. I think she believed me.


4 comments:

Scott said...

Beautiful image of the fleabane--whatever the species, Carolyn.

(And, not to be picky, but your puppies were "spayed," not "spade.")

Pablo said...

Nice photo of the snake.

Carolyn H said...

Scott: Spayed vs spade. You're right, thanks. And to be even clearer, one was spayed and one was neutered.

Carolyn H said...

Pablo: Thanks! The snake was pretty cool. I often see juvenile water snakes that are similarly patterned, so I had to look close at this one to make sure it wasn't one of those.