what's love got to do with it?

It seems our snake had a mate.
I was picking blueberries yesterday ( about 3 weeks early) and as I moved a low branch and there to my surprise was a bigger and better looking snake that looked just like the one moved on Saturday. As I levitated out of the berry patch I thought maybe the snake had come back.
After going to get my snake charmer to remove the snake we decided that it must be the mate of the other one.
We relocated him to the same space in hopes that true love will find it's path and they will be reunited and take their offspring somewhere else to live.
I am convinced there was some love fest that was going to or had already happened in there among my berries.

I am going to keep a sharp eye out while picking anything this year.

On another note just as I was posting a message to our daughter on FB the phone rang and it was Anna to tell me they had been hit while stopped to let a car turn left.
It seems that a young woman was possibly texting and driving. She never even saw the car until she hit them. It's a pretty big car so how could she miss it unless....
She says she was not texting but she was doing something that diverted her attention away from looking while she was driving and I can tell you looking while you drive is important in my book.
The report is they are fine, car is pretty banged up. The granddaughter was not in the car and is fine.
But it shook me up.
People- do not text and drive- really just stop, you are really not that important!

Even though I want to jump in my car and go fix this all for my kid I know she will do it herself.

And what are we doing in the studio?
Throwing.
40 pots for Mark yesterday and only 36 for me- I am such a slacker...
pictures later.

 Okay, okay here you go- before and after.

cheers!
M

A bird in the bush or invite them for tea

I have a hanging plant right across from my front door.
I noticed on Friday that I had a pair of very determined birds who were building a nest in the plant. I have had this happen before and it makes it very tricky to water  the plant.
Since I did not want to deal with the nest, eggs, mama bird I removed the nest.
They just fussed and went right back to work.
I then went in and retrieve some rubber snakes I have thanks to my son, a trip to the zoo when he was in about 4th grade and placed a snake in the basket.
Do you think they cared?
No, they just figured out it was fake and stated a new nest.
Okay, I removed the hanging basket, you win.
Next morning, new nest in a small bucket next to the kitchen door.

You win I thought and I get it you are going to build in something let's try something we can agree on.
We have this teapot that was a second from many kiln firings ago that we have over by the kiln.
There have been at least two nest built in it.
I went and got it, cleaned it out, washed it and hung it.

  You can just see the start of a new nest going in.
I was happy we could work that out.

We, Mark and our son, relocated the a very cozy, make myself at home, I like it here, garter snake out of the blueberries.
He/she has gone to live way on the other side of the pond.

I think this was a good thing after reading about the matting and reproduction of these guys.
I might have ended up with a whole ball of snakes in the yard.
Yikes!

We had a very nice visit from our son who has been brewing beer, good beer. He is working on getting Mark interested in brewing again. Mark use to make beer back in the day when we could not get beer here without driving 25-45 minutes.
And even then the choices were not as good as they are now. He brewed and he and I bottled.
Well let's just say there are better ways, better supplies and better choices in the brew department as well.

A little tasting going on.
This one is quite good- an IPA .
Now how are we going to get any work done?
Cheers!
M

isn't this where we all keep our pets?

On Sunday while chatting with our son on the phone I spied a visitor taking advantage of a cool spot in the kiln.

Of course my first thought was, "why did someone leave a piece of rubber in the kiln/"
On a closer look......

I realized it was one of our "friends."
I have written a few post about snakes and how I have learned to live with them.
They are beneficial in many ways. I tend to leave them where I find them and hope they do their job.
My job in this case is to not get in their way.
So, I left him.
Later- Mark came in to grab the camera in time to see the great escape.

I know this guy gives some of you the willies- but for me it is another day in the paradise of the constant and ever changing science project I live in.
Cheers!
M

Gary- DON"T LOOK!

Thanks for the birthday wishes for Mark.
He had a nice birthday with visits  from my sister and her husband and a week-end visit with our son and his wife.
Mark was able to spend some father/son time out on the pond.
The report was many fish were caught.
And even though there was no pie- he ate his share of brownies!
But since the word is out I guess there will be a pie one day soon.
Now who is coming over to have a slice?

While sitting outside and taking in the most wonderful, sunny first day of spring my BIL, John, spotted our first crawling visitor. This black snake was out sunning himself in the boxwood bushes.
Of course Mark and I ran for camers.
He was not happy to have us right there and the tounge would flick out very often.
I tried to get a shot of that flicking tounge and he would pull it in just as I would shot!
He finally got tired of our company and took off.
Which was good because my sister was coming out and she is not a fan of snakes.
I don't mind them as long as they live outside and don't come in to see us..........

One more kiln to fire tomorrow and the packing starts for our treck off to The Catawba Valley Festival in Hickory NC.

and then there are the snakes

When we moved to the family farm in 1976 I was well aware of my fear of snakes.
I was taught as a child to stand still and yell for an adult, who would grab a hoe and quickly made short work of the snake.
I use to dream about snakes and in many of the dreams they were enormous snakes who would come after me by bouncing on their tales.
I decided I needed to address this fear and figure out how I and the snakes could live together on the farm.
My method for this was to kill first and identify later. Not the best outcome for the snake, but one that let me take the time to figure out who they were. I needed to know who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
I quickly learned the Copperheads or pilot snake, as my neighbors called them, was the bad guy for my area.
I heard we have rattle snakes but have only seen two here and one was over by the zoo. I have never seen one on the farm.
The good guys were the King snake, Milk snake, Corn snake, Rat snake, the common black snake and the Eastern Black Racer. These all eat mice and rats and will take out the bad guys. We had a King snake which moved through our yard every spring. We use to look forward to his trip and would go out to make sure he made it through. We would tell our bug eyed customers to just step back and leave him alone.
I stopped seeing him several years ago.
On the small side there are the common garden snakes and the Ring neck snakes. These are both small snakes and you have to look quick to see them. Again, I have not seen any of these for awhile.
We have our usual black snakes up around the house in the spring and around the kiln. They will take up a territory and you have to convince them to move. Mark will pick them up, no thanks; I am not picking up any of them.
I use a hoe and pick them up and walk quickly to the woods where I toss.
Don’t laugh I know they come back.
Another snake here is the Hognose snake. When threatened, hognose snakes hiss loudly and spread their necks like cobras do, resulting in the nicknames “puff adder” or “spreading adder.” They rarely bite during these displays, but they may strike repeatedly. If the antagonist continues, the hognose snake will feign death by opening its mouth, rolling over on its back, and writhing around. If turned over onto its belly, it will immediately roll again onto its back.
I knew I was doing my job teaching my children about snakes when Anna and Joel caught one in a mason jar and brought it to me to identify.
I did and we released it later.
I’ll save that story for another time.
We have had several snakes find their way inside the house.
The first was on the kitchen counter and small enough that I thought he was the cord to the radio and when I walked over to “plug” it in he moved. And so did I! I still swear I levitated out of the kitchen.
He was removed unharmed.
Another was just hanging out on the kitchen floor. A long about 3-4 foot black snake. I glanced that way and thought, “why has Mark left a black plastic pipe on the floor?”
Then it moved…….
He was removed unharmed as well.
We were getting pretty good at this snake removal thing.
The one which did not make it out alive was the one which dropped onto Mark’s keyboard in the old office. That one had a nasty disposition and needed to have an attitude adjustment.
And there are others- but not today.
For more on NC snakes check out this great site.