A helping hand..

I am so thankful that my parents did not train me to be afraid of nature. There were only a few “animal fears” that I remember having as a child. The woman across the street kept banty chickens – little, tiny things, and those little roosters were ferocious. I remember one chasing me and pecking my legs. I remember being chased by large, booming tom turkey on the farm of mother’s childhood friend in northern California.

Worst of all was the my fear of Weimaraner dogs, which came about because there were several behind a chain-liked fence that I had to pass every day on my way to school, and they seemed to wait for me, charging the fence with apoplectic fury, hatred in their creepy yellowish eyes, as I walked by, cringing away from them. I have never really gotten over my dislike for those dogs. There was man who became quite famous taking pictures of his Weimaraner dogs dressed up in clothes. I was never fond of those pictures.

Mothers have such an influence over how their children view the world. My mom kept her opinions about snakes and lizards and frogs and those things to her self. She encouraged us to be curious and interested in nature and the creatures that live in with us.

So, when we were bringing up our son, I tried very hard not to train him to be afraid of things that were not harmful and to instill in him a respect for life so he just didn’t automatically kill some wild creature he “didn’t like.” A lot of people in this area have the attitude: if it moves, shoot it; if it is in the road, run over it. Especially if it is a snake. We did not want him to become that sort of a person. And he hasn’t.

He has become my eyes and ears outside these days. We send him out early in the morning to do odd jobs in the yard before it becomes too hot. And he sees things.

A week or so ago, he came in my office and said “Mom. There is a speckled king snake outside. It is really cool.” So I leaped up and grabbed the camera and out the door I went.

Sure enough…. 

There was a really cool snake outside.

A few days ago, we put him to work tearing out the old, rotten lumber we had used to make in a raised bed for our vegetable garden years ago. A little while later he came in with a big grin on his face, gently cradling something in his “I-don’t-have-an-office-job” hand. Mom, look what I found while I was digging out the wood!

It was very calm in his hand….

And then it began to slither off...

and so he let it down near where he had been working and off it went.