Jack in the Box

I visited Chicago in October of 2003 and stayed with Jerry.

I was out on the patio with Jack and caught a small grasshopper.

I popped the grasshopper in my mouth and watched Jack's eyes bug out. Then I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out and the grasshopper was on it like a little diving board. It jumped off and I caught it in the air in my hand again. That part was like a little magic trick.

I'm not sure why I did it, it was just a wild impulse. But it worked out pretty well.

Big Snake

OK, here's another in a long series of snake stories.

I got this email from Dale, claiming that this snake was found in Medicine Lodge. It's supposed to be 9 feet long, according to the email. I found the story on snopes at http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/txsnake.asp. Other emails first said it was found in Texas, then later in Missouri.

But is it truly a 9 foot long snake?

My North American Wildlife Guide says that it's a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake and that they can get 3 to 7 feet long. There is an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that gets 8 feet long, but it doesn't have stripes around the tail like this one.

I think this one is right around 7 feet long. I guess the man is about 5 feet tall. The angle that he is holding out the snake makes it look longer. I think it's almost a foot off the ground at the tail and 2 feet off the ground at the head. That would make it around 7 feet long. It's still a huge snake, but not quite 9 feet long.

So I don't think the photo is altered, but it is a bit of an illusion. The thing I find interesting about the picture is what a bloody broken mess the back of the neck right below the head is. Obviously, this snake did not get a friendly reception.

Fearless

I got this picture of Matt today, holding a boa constrictor at a reptile park they visited yesterday.

This reminds me of his father. Growing up, Warren was always the one totally unafraid of animals. He would turn over rocks, looking for whatever was underneath, and was the first one of our group of kids that I remember that would pick up snakes. We caught frogs with our hands, and crawdads (crayfish) with bits of bacon on a string.

Warren was also good at catching grasshoppers with his bare hands, and I remember one time he was sitting in the grass, and snatched at something hopping around in the grass. He slowly opened his hand to find that he had a huge spider!

Another time, when I was probably 6 or 7, we were walking through some grass and one of those huge grasshoppers crawled up my pants. I had on some jeans with long legs and I remember that they were pretty new and stiff. This huge grasshopper was clawing its way up my leg and I was terrified. I had no idea that it was a grasshopper, just something creepy inside my pant leg. So while I'm screaming and doing the jiggy dance, Warren calmly pinched whatever it was through the leg on my jeans, and reached up from the bottom until he could grab it and pull it out. I was relieved by having it removed, but also to learn it was just a grasshopper.

Warren loved animals so much that he secretly bought mice at the little pet store in the TG&Y store in our neighborhood. He brought them home and put them in a box in our basement, because we didn't ask if we could have mice. We guessed we weren't supposed to have something like this. Dad found out when they got away and we had to hunt them down in the basement. We kept them for a while. They had many litters and soon we had a huge crate full of mice.

Warren eventually became a veterinarian, which surprised nobody.

Florida Retiree

Many older people that retire move to Florida.

We went to Florida to a little town called Seagrove last winter. There were retirees everywhere. Andrea was treating them like they were this rare animal, on the verge of extinction, and that were were lucky to see them.

The whole time we were there, we took pictures like this one, making fun of the fact that we "spotted the elusive Florida retiree." We pretended like they were shy and easily spooked.

Some times it's funny to make fun of people, if it's all in good humor.

River Snake

When I went to Ecuador, we were supposed to march through the jungle every day, looking for a route for a new road through the thick trees.

Each day we came back covered in mud and needed to clean off somehow. There were showers in the base camp, but the line was long and the showers were dirty, nasty, and crowded.

We preferred the local stream. It was a beautiful stream coming out of the mountains with clear fresh water. We drove over a little bridge and then followed the stream for a while before stopping. The rocks were huge. We stripped down to our shorts and waded out into the stream where we cleaned our uniforms in the stream and washed the mud off our arms and legs.

It was a great daily ritual. It was hot in the jungle right on the equator and the mountain stream was cool and refreshing. After carrying around all that mud all day, it was so nice to get clean.

One day, after we finished cleaning up and left the stream, we drove over the bridge and looked back down into the stream. There was a snake about 12' or 15' long, probably about 3" across, swimming on top of the stream, going against the current faster than I could run.

We found another place to bathe after that.

Snake Hunter

The story below about the raining snakes has another part.

We were told to be careful about the snakes in the Costa Rican jungle, because many were poisonous. One snake, called the bushmaster was not only poisonous, but dangerous in another way too. They said that if one struck you, it would hit so hard that it would probably break the bone.

We carried machetes (big long knives) and mostly kept an eye out for snakes and tried to avoid them. I didn't see them very often, actually.

Lieutenant Wilson was the snake hunter of the group. He was in my tent with the rest of us. He was in charge of the bulldozers, so he would hang out around the rain of snakes. He liked to catch the snakes in the jungle when he found them. He got very good at it. Every day he would bring home snakes he had found that day. He would open their mouths and reach in with a knife. If there were big fangs folded up onto the roof of the mouth, the snake was poisonous.

I don't remember seeing any of them that weren't poisonous.

Guardian Groundhog

I think I have a guardian groundhog.

I was riding my motorcycle today, stuck behind a Raytown Schools van going very slow. I made my move, pulling out to pass, and the fun of being unstuck made me open it up until I was going too fast. The next thing I know, there is a groundhog on the side of the road, looking like he was getting ready to cross. I slowed way down, and a police car popped over the hill. If not for my guardian groundhog, I probably would have gotten a ticket. Thanks Chuckie!

Actually, it could have been a beaver. I was going too fast to check out his tail.

It's raining snakes!

I went to Costa Rica when I was in the Army. We were building roads and bridges, digging water wells and doing medical and veterinary clinics.

We were here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=10.060811,-82.762756&spn=0.91406,1.235962&t=h&z=9&om=0&msa=0&msid=103772662287472566049.000001134af10e490ffb2

If you zoom in, you'll see the banana plantation we were next too. It's huge. It was really neat.

We had bulldozers knocking down trees to make our road through the jungle. Another guy in my tent was in charge of the bulldozers and told me this story:

The way a bulldozer knocks down a 60' to 80' tall tree is they cut around the base of the tree on three sides, back up, raise the blade and slam into the tree to tip it over. The first time the bulldozers slammed into the trees, there was a nasty surprise. The bulldozer hit the tree, and the operator reached down to put the bulldozer in reverse. About that time, dozens of snakes that had been in the tree came raining down on the bulldozer. The operator was in an open cage and some were right next to him, others were on the hot engine hood, slithering like mad!

The operator jumped from the cab and ran away screaming.

They eventually worked out a procedure. They put a piece of plywood over the cab and put two guys with long forked sticks and machetes next to the bulldozer. When the bulldozer hit the tree, the operator just shut down the bulldozer and curled up in a ball and waited. The two guys with sticks ran in and flicked all the snakes out of the way.

You don't want to be sitting in the middle of a rainstorm of snakes.

Songs of Insects

I got this book Songs of Insects for Uncle Kyle for his birthday. I heard about it on the radio, these guys tromped around in the woods and meadows for 6 years with recorders and microphones, recording the sounds of crickets and katydids and cicadas (we call them locusts). The book has a CD with all their songs on it, and I got one for myself and loaded it onto my ipod. It sounds really cool. You can see more on their website: http://www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/index.html

One of the authors had hearing loss in certain frequencies. This means he can't hear some types of sounds. This usually happens when you get older, so kids - don't blow your ears out with loud music, you'll wish you hadn't later. I noticed that there were 2 tracks on the CD that I could not hear at all. Makes you wonder how much you are missing.

There was another book on Amazon.com by the same guys, Songs of Birds. I got it and was playing it this morning. It helps you identify all the birds by their songs. I had it on my computer and was listening in the family room. Two of the cats came in, first Speedy, then Eddy. They thought there were birds in the room! It was so funny. They came over to the computer and kept rubbing against it and staring at the speakers, trying to figure out if there were birds in there. I guess they really like the birdies!

Dos Hombres

These two wranglers look like they are just spoiling for something fun to do. This is last Easter when Cole & Tyce got together at the Ranch. Red dirt, rocks, kitties, cows, bikes, basketballs, and fishing. It doesn't get much better than that.

When "the big boys" were about these guys size, we used to ride on the top of hay bales stacked in the back of the pickup truck, going out to feed the cows. Jerry was riding on the edge of the stack when the truck hit a bump. The bales he was on all fell off the side of the truck and took him down with them. He wasn't hurt at all, surprisingly. You don't get to fall over 10' off a moving truck and get to walk away dusting yourself off very often.

When we got home, Warren wrote a story for his Kindergarten class called "The Adventures of Miss Kitty". There was a momma cat in the barn back then, and we were very surprised to see it way down the road around where Jerry fell off the truck. I don't remember how the story went, but it had something to do with the cat travelling a long way. That was a long time ago when we were the size of these guys!

Home on the Range

Jodi & Lisa are showing off the country lifestyle!

There's nothing like a pretty lady and a pretty puppy in a pickup, is there?

Feeding the Cows

Tyce is quite the cowboy. Here he is last Easter while we were feeding the cows. The truck is lined up to drive down the line and deliver the feed pellets into the bins. First you have to call them in and you also need to count them.

I wonder if Tyce is going to drive the truck, too? Cowboy up!

Dogs with Toys

My cousin got a black lab puppy and named her Lisa. Actually, someone else in the family named her Lisa, I think after Clint Black's wife.

Lisa, like most labs, is a happy and friendly dog. Somewhere along the line, Lisa picked up a teddy bear. She loves the teddy bear, and is often carrying it around the yard. This is a great picture, because it has her using her teddy bear as a pillow.

Pleasant dreams, Lisa!

Blind Baby Possum

Sometimes we see little animals that are pretty sad and pathetic.

This little possum was wandering around aimlessly in the day. We figured out that he wasn't able to see. He couldn't tell what time of the day it was. He was out during the day when possums almost always come out at night. He wandered around looking confused. He didn't see people or cats walking near him. He didn't seem to know where he was.

We think he navigated by smell. He kept coming by and wandering around for a few days, so we went over and put some cat food in his path. Then he would smell the food (or trip over it) and eat like crazy! He was so hungry.

He may have gotten over whatever was making him blind. I think I saw him much later and he could see just fine.

The Easter Bunny

You'll never see the Easter Bunny, he's just too crafty. He's able to hide those eggs right under your nose, practically.

However, sometimes grown-ups like to dress up like the Easter Bunny, to keep the kids happy. Thanks, Uncle Steve!

Kiss my Burl

Nick loves trees. This one, down on the ranch, had some huge growth on it.

So the only choice was to pose for this picture.

That's gross!

Steve loves to fish. He dreams about fishing and taking his next fishing trip. He picks his lures with care and loves to get out on the water and start casting.

He loves to catch fish. He loves the pretty fish. He loves them so much, he likes to give them a big wet kiss! Not everyone loves fishing that much.

Cade's Kittens

When we visit my cousin's farm, we get to see the latest batch of new kittens.

Cade is our feline finder. He takes us down to the butler building and finds the latest litter of kittens.

He gets to name all the new kittens, and his brother Tyce doesn't seem to mind. I'm not sure how they keep all those cats' names straight.

Missouri Hillbilly

This strange species is the Missouri Hillbilly. He can be seen outside of his habitat, the rusty trailer, usually playing in the dirty trash.

Notice the prominent teeth. The Missouri Hillbilly has a love for caries, a type of bug (bacteria) living in the mouth that eats up the teeth. Hillbillies consider caries their pets and do nothing to get rid of them.

The Missouri Hillbilly is an endangered species, on the verge of extinction. They have a hard time finding a mate.

Would you want to kiss someone with teeth like that?

Curious Coatimundi

This animal is a relative of the racoon, native to Central and South America. It's called the Coatimundi and can be found everywhere.

When I was in Panama, I saw them all the time. They travelled in large groups and walked with their tails straight up. The tails were striped and almost as long as their body.

They liked trash dumpsters. One would sit on top and watch out for the others that would go down inside the dumpster and scrounge for food. They seemed smart and friendly.

You can learn more about Coatimundis at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coatimundi

People keep them as pets, but I was never that curious.

Groundhog Day

We have a groundhog. He lives under the barn. We thought it was a muskrat last year when we first spotted it. He likes to eat dandelions. If he sees us he runs away, sometimes into a drain pipe. The cats will also hang out with him, they don't seem to mind. He's like our little movie star.

Ricky Racoon

We feed our cats on the back steps.

Unfortunately, this means that any food left over is a lure for other animals. I guess this would be a problem if we didn't like the other animals.

How can you not like a racoon?

Sometimes we leave the back door open with a cat flap for the cats to get in and out. Their food was inside. Andrea heard a funny noise in the kitchen and went into the kitchen and flipped the lights on. Ricky was dining in the kitchen, but soon left when he saw Andrea. Some guests have to stay on the patio!

Button Buck

This is the season that the bucks grow back their antlers. This one was hanging out in our back yard behind the grapes. They say the antlers are "in velvet" when they are growing back because they are fuzzy like velvet.

A button buck is a one year old buck. They only have little stubs for antlers because they are young. This deer is probably not really a button buck, he will probably have the longer horns of an older deer. But right now he looks like a velvet button buck.

Ducks as pets?

We went to the Kansas State University Open House in 2005. Ally and Kelly and Cole got to visit the Beta house to see Bobbie. While there, we ran into a boy in the house that had pet ducklings. He was walking them in the front yard when the kids showed up. Not many people have ducklings for pets, but the kids seemed to think it was a good idea!

Snapping Turtles

When I was really little, maybe 2 or 3, we lived in a duplex next to a lagoon.

One day, there was a huge snapping turtle on the front sidewalk. Our mother was probably scared to death for us. "My precious babies! They'll be eaten by the ugly monster!" I'm sure she immediately ran and found the Dadinator.

Dad was not very excited, he knew about Snappers. He got a broom and held the end close to the turtle's mouth. The Snapper did what Snappers do, he snapped his jaws onto the broomstick. Then he picked up the turtle by the broom and put the turtle back in the lagoon.

Dads are really smart.

Crazy Cuppy

Cuppy cat is a pretty silly little kitten.

Who knows why cats do what they do? When I come home at night, she follows me to where I take my shoes off and waits for her favorite thing.... MY SOCKS!

She likes to grab my socks with her paws and rub her jawline against the smelly socks. She has a little love fest with the socks for about 5 minutes, then goes on with her life.

Here she is tonight, with me trying to pet her while she was chewing my socks. Watch the claws!

Tiny Horse

This is the smallest horse I've ever seen. It was in the Peace Treaty Parade in Medicine Lodge.

Thar Be Whales!

When we went to Depoe Bay on our Honeymoon, we were very excited about seeing the whales. We went out on a boat in the ocean to find them, and they were right by the coast. So instead of getting to really go out on a boat in the ocean, we sat by the shore and watched the whales. There were people on a bridge on shore above us watching the whales, probably with a better view than we had. I couldn't get a tail fin picture of the whale. In this picture, you can see his back and a little bit of spray coming out of his blowhole.

Friendly Seals

We went to Depoe Bay on our Honeymoon to see the whales in the ocean. While we were waiting, these friendly seals came over to the fishermen and begged for slimy fish guts. Yummy!

Don't eat the slugs!

I was over at a friend's house one time when something weird happened.

The cat came up to us and it had this little moustache and beard of foam around its mouth. Its mouth was opening and closing like a little zombie kitty and it kept coming at us.

At first I thought it had gone crazy, maybe it had rabies. I thought it was foaming at the mouth and trying to bite us.

It wasn't that. The cat was in trouble. It was having a hard time breathing and couldn't swallow. I reached into its mouth and pulled the stuff out and it was rubbery. A big piece tore out of his mouth and then he could breath. The rubbery stuff was really stuck in the furr of his muzzle. He let me pick most of it out. Normally, cats don't let you pick sticky stuff out of their furr because it hurts. This cat was so relieved to be able to breath that he let me pull furr out of his lips to get the stuff out.

My brother Warren told me what he thought happened. The cat found a slug and chewed on it. Slugs secrete a thick slime as a defense mechanism and this slime dries out and becomes rubbery and chokes anything that tries to eat the slug. This cat had probably never seen a slug before, and chewing on it probably seemed like a good thing to do. I doubt he ever tried to eat a slug again.

Don't Feed the Bears!

Andrea and I went hiking in the mountains in Colorado 2 years ago and had an interesting encounter.

We were in Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked 10 miles from Bear Lake to the Fern Lake trail head. We were around half way through the walk when we met a bear. Andrea was looking down and didn't notice it, even though it was about 30' away. When I saw it, I grabbed her by the backpack and said "bear!"

We had been reading the ranger brochures about bears, so we were prepared. We knew that meeting a bear was pretty rare. We learned that they are only dangerous if there is a cub, if you startle them, or if you have food. Our situation was almost all three. The bear was pretty small, probably not much bigger than a cub. He wasn't with his mother, so she wasn't there to attack us. We may have startled him, he certainly surprised us. You are supposed to make lots of noise in the woods. If the bear hears you coming, he'll hide. We were being quiet. At least we didn't have any food!

I tried to get a quick photo of it, but he was already disappearing into the underbrush by then. I put the big red arrow in the photo to help spot the bear (it's just his behind). I'm sorry we don't have a better picture. We were too busy waiting for the bear to attack us when it was up close. Only after it moved away did I think to grab the camera.

About 15 minutes later, we were looking for a little campground that was supposed to be near the path. I kept telling Andrea that I could smell the campground, someone must be there and they must be cooking. We found the campground and it was empty. I could still smell food, it was strong. Then we remembered that we packed sandwiches in the backpack. You could easily smell them. We broke the most important rule about bears, don't carry any food or the hungry bears will go after it. I guess we got lucky.

Friendly's Fight

Friendly is our oldest cat. She was born under the front porch some time back in the mid 90s. I guess she's about 13. Mom was there when I found the litter under the front porch. Until we got Friendly fixed, she was the mother for many new kittens.

Friendly has always been fearless. You can mow the yard and she just sits there staring at the mower while the other cats are running for their lives. We thought she might be deaf. I used to think this is how she got in trouble.

I came home one day and heard some dogs barking loudly next door. It didn't seem right, so I got a flashlight and went over to check it out. I found two big dogs with Friendly stuck out in the open, in a fight for her life. I ran the dogs a little ways off. They were big mangy strays I'd never seen before. I turned to Friendly, who was breathing hard, panting and wide eyed. I immediately bent down and started to pick her up, not realizing that in the dark with my flashlight and the dogs still nearby that she was still keyed up to fight.

Friendly bit me so hard that one of her fangs went deep into the middle joint of my right thumb. I screamed. It really hurt. However, I had to get her out of the dog fight. I quickly stripped off the sweatshirt I was wearing and bundled Friendly in it and took her inside to the kitchen counter.

She was covered in mud and also had some blood on her, but I couldn't tell if she was hurt. She lost one of her lower fangs in the fight. She had gone to the bathroom all over herself, and was still breathing hard when I cleaned her up with wet paper towels.

She survived the fight with a small puncture in her back, probably a dog bite, and the lost fang. Warren checked her out and patched her up. She became an inside cat at that point, and still is. I don't know if she really is deaf, but she is a little crazy. She still loves to be petted and seems pretty happy for an old cat with a chronic cough. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't come along when I did. I'm sure those dogs got some pretty bad scratches and maybe a fang broken off under their hide. Maybe they'll think twice before going after another friendly little cat.

Kyle and the Kompost

Uncle Kyle & I had a good old time in the leaf pile last year. Steve was able to get a pic of Kyle when he was airborne!

I didn't tell Kyle that snakes like to live in the leaves, as well as the hordes of spiders. None of this bothered me, but sometimes other people are squeamish about creepy crawlies.

One time, I saw a huge snake curled in my compost heap. He was moving around in a figure 8 pattern, back and forth. There were big fat grubs in the compost, and the snake was churning them up and stuffing himself with them. He was so fat and happy that he didn't even notice that I was there.

Another time I was turning over my compost heap with a rototiller and I overturned a clutch of eggs. They were bigger than a bird's egg, but smaller than a chicken's egg. About the size of a big jawbreaker, but oval and orange colored. I thought they may be turtle eggs, but I noticed that I had cut one open accidentally. I opened it up to look inside an a slimy snake embryo spilled out with lots of clear gooey stuff. So I had snake eggs! I carefully reburied them. I wonder if they all hatched? Snakes love the compost and leaf piles.

The Kitties and Kyle

When we first got the kittens, they were very small. They liked to crawl up in your lap and get warm and cozy.

Uncle Kyle came over and the kittens just loved him. They all crawled up in his lap at once and took a nap.

They still like Kyle, but they are too big to all fit in his lap at the same time.

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY, KYLE!

If you click on the picture, you can see a bigger version of it. You can leave a message below in the Comments, if you like. Let me know when you've looked at it, because we're going to add more stories and you will get pushed off the front page as we make more postings. Enjoy your top spot while you can!

Tame Mountain Birds

Sometimes birds get so tame that they will eat out of your hand. When they are hungry, they aren't worried about being hurt by people, they just want your food. Their little claws are surprisingly light and don't scratch or hurt. It tickles a little bit.

This bird had about 6 friends and they were all very hungry. The granola bars we had were very handy for feeding our feathered friends. One was young and confused. He kept landing on my shoe and even landed on my wife's head.

In this picture, Mount St. Helens is in the background. This is a volcano that blew up in 1984 and destroyed a big swath of forest. Now, 23 years later, the forest is growing back and the animals are starting to come back. We saw these birds just outside of the blast zone. You aren't supposed to feed wild animals because they are not supposed to depend on people, but find their own food.

We broke the rules and fed the birds. It's just too cool to have a bird land on your hand.

The Wiley Coyote

I like the coyote. They look so much like a dog. They are a close relative of the grey wolf.

We saw this coyote on our honeymoon. He was there, then vanished. The indians believed that the coyote was god's dog. He has a mournful cry in the night that sounds both scary and sad.

I once came within 10 feet of a coyote. I was sitting on the bank of a dry stream bed in some woods. The little dry creek bed wound through the woods like a snake. Suddenly, a coyote popped out from around the creek bend about 40 feet away, walking toward me. He didn't notice me, because I was sitting still (I froze when I saw him). He walked down to creek right up to me, and I could see his nose twitching, smelling for prey or danger. I could tell when he noticed me, although I'm not sure if he saw me or smelled me. He stopped and turned around and trotted away, just as quickly as he came. He didn't know I was his friend.

Chipmunks are Beggers

This little guy was really cute.

We saw him at Mount St. Helens. He sat in my wife's lap eating on a granola bar for 10 minutes. He was so full that he had to stuff his little cheeks. Then he ran down the wall to look at me to see if I had any food. Sorry little guy, no food in my pockets!

When T-Rex Attacks

Watch out turkeys! T-Rex is hungry! Run for your lives!

Going against the grain

We went to Cocoa Beach in Florida in December. These birds were on the beach, all lined up looking the same way. Why do they do that? It's like an array of birds. You would think they could warn each other better if they looked in all directions. Maybe they are all keeping their beaks out of the wind.

Can you see the one that is going against the crowd?

Buddy Likes Steak Bones

My cousin has a little beagle called Buddy. He's a good dog, pretty quiet most of the time, and like all dogs, he likes to be petted.

What Buddy really likes is a big steak bone. He wedged this one in the deck and went to work on it without looking up for a long time.

He looked so funny when he started licking the greasy steak juice off his lips. That was one happy dog.

Gobbledy Gook

Wild Turkeys are funny. We have a lot of them around our house. They get really loud in late May and early June because that's when the Gobblers are looking for some love.

Our turkeys are mostly tame, they are fed corn by the man 2 doors down. They walk back and forth through the yard all day. They make the most hilarious sound. We laugh everytime we hear it. My brother was visiting and made the gibberish sound to the turkeys and they made it right back! Every time you gobble at them, they gobble back. I wonder what they think they are saying to us? Surely they can tell by our gibberish accents that we are not real turkeys? Maybe it's like fans at a football or soccer game, they just like to make themselves be heard.

One time our cat Squeal decided that he wanted to hunt some turkeys. Turkeys are bigger than cats, so this was going to be interesting. There were about 10 of them in the back yard, and he crouched down and snuck up on them. I think they saw him coming. They weren't afraid. Then he struck! He ran at them, ready to attack. He leaped at the group and came to a stop inside a perfect circle of turkeys. Whoops. What now, he was wondering. He hunkered down on the ground.

The turkeys did that funny thing they do with their heads, moving them forward and backward. They were all turned in to the middle of the circle where Squeal was crouched close to the ground. Uh oh. They started to move inward. Were they just stupid and curious, or were they smart enough to know that they had the advantage?

Squeal did not wait to find out. He made a break for it, dashing between two turkeys and running for safety. He's never hunted turkey again.

Mean Old Squeal

That's Squeal. He's kind of mean. He hates the younger kittens and always runs after them, chases them, and beats up on them. I guess he's a bit of a bully. Some times things backfire on bullies.

Cuppy was trying to catch frogs by the edge of the pond. Squeal did a sneak attack on Cuppy, who dodged at the last minute and got away clean.

Squeal was not so lucky.

This is what a cat looks like that falls into the mud at the edge of a pond. It's not pretty.

Squeal would not let me touch him to clean him off. I was going to take a wet paper towel to him and get the worst of the stinky mud off him. He's too scared of me for that. A couple of days later, Squeal's whites were bright white and his black was glossy shiny new. I wonder what that tasted like or how many hours he had to lick himself off. Yuck!

Visitor Snake

I was working late at my office last night. As I leaned over to close my office window, I noticed that a snake was coming in the window. I was startled, and could only see the part of the snake that was hanging over the window sill. It looked like the snake was about 1" wide. I had no idea how big it was or what kind of snake it was. I quickly grabbed it and tossed it out of the window. Then I went outside and took pictures of it. Isn't it a pretty snake? How did he get up to the window? What did he hope to find inside? Most snakes in Missouri are not poisonous. Snakes are not very fast to react, rarely strike at people, and are mostly terrified of people and want nothing more than to get away or be left alone. Snakes are cold blooded, meaning their bodies take on the temperature of the surroundings. They would die if they were outside during the winter, so they burrow under ground and hibernate through the winter. Snakes lay clutches of eggs in soft moist soil. They eat bugs, which is good for people. People don't like snakes, but I do. I certainly don't like seeing one suddenly or unexpectedly. The surprise can be startling and frightening. Everything seems to want to kill snakes, so I like to think of them as friends.