A Naturalist and a Femina Domesticus Walk into the Bush… - November 10, 2018
My hubs is a naturalist. No, I don’t mean that other kind of naturalist – you know, the ones that only wear the clothes God gave them. (OK, except when Laur weighs himself.)
No, by naturalist, I mean a person who truly enjoys almost every aspect of nature close up. If you’ve ever hiked with my hubs, you’ll know that he wants to take a picture of every tree, cactus, flower, bush, spider, deer, lizard and snake we come across.
Yes, snakes! And 2018 has been a good year from him. He’s had three sightings. The first was en route to a hike at Quantrell Mine, Arizona in the Spring. The jeep he was riding along in rolled over a curled up snake. Laur yelled, “Stop the car!” And he ran back to – I dunno – take a pulse on the thing?
The rattlesnake was very much alive and merely coiled – you know – that thing they do before they strike?! Hubs was undeterred. His first alive-in-nature rattlesnake. Had I been there I’d have been shrieking at him to get away. But he’d have ignored me. Thankfully his travel buddies pointed out that the rattler was shaking its tail, so if he didn’t want to wreck a perfectly good hike, he should come back to the vehicle.
The second was this 5 foot long lime green critter that slithered up past him while he was sitting on a cliff beside Hutch’s Pool, enjoying a sandwich, mid-hike. The snake curled up in a ball under the rock beside him. Hubs could not have been happier. I’m surprised he didn’t offer “Snakey” half his peanut butter sandwich. I could not get far enough away from it without losing sight of the group.
The third was in Korea. We were hiking through an area that had warning signs in Korean that we couldn’t read – but we could figure out through the pictures. Beware! There are poisonous snakes, venomous spiders (of which Laur has many photos), and wild boars. These boars have no fear of humans and like to rampage into them.
Laur being a Northern Ontario bush baby was not daunted in the least. And within a few minutes, a short dark snake slowly slid across our path. And it did not disappear. It just leisurely turned and slithered back to a hole under a log, looking at us as if to say, “You may photograph me if you wish…” And Laur certainly did, practicing his selective deafness to his ophiophobic wife.
I have this theory. If a snake “runs” away from you, it’s likely not poisonous. If, on the other hand, it doesn’t pay you any mind, it IS poisonous. When we got back to our hotel room, I searched the internet to find out what kind of snake it was. It was likely a tiger snake and, yes, it can make you glad you purchased out of country health insurance.
Me, I’m definitely “femina domesticus” – a city gal. (OK, Belleville, Ontario was a very small city.) If I never see another snake, wild pig, bear, Gila monster, spider, killer bee, cockroach or centipede again, it will be too soon. My mom, Granny Marj, would add to that list gophers, bunnies, mice, and moles - not to mention mosquitos, flies, tent caterpillars, and black flies.
I would never go out of my way to hurt a critter – except for the bugs. I’m a vegan – I can’t even bring myself to eat farm animals. And there is one fellow creature that I can never get enough of. Cats. Folks who know me know that my family, growing up, always had a cat. A new one every year thanks to Hwy 2, but I digress.
And when we lived in Sudbury – with a lot of help from my friends – I ran a cat shelter and cat adoption store. The cat shelter was our house. We had a kitten room, a sick cat room, a well cat room, and a house full of cats that I couldn’t quite classify.
I’m not naïve about cats. I realize that they are truly carnivores and they only love you because you feed them. And had I been the size of a barbie doll, my beloved cats would have tortured me almost to death and then chomped on me while I was still living.
But I must be oblivious. Take this incident WHICH REALLY HAPPENEED the other morning.
I was doing my slow jog around the RV park listening to a podcast when a man waved at me. I turned off my podcast and he said, "Didn't you see that!!!???"
I said, "See what!?" He said, "The bobcat standing on the wall. You ran right by it!" Like within two feet of it! I said, "Oh my goodness, here I was thinking about my own breakfast and I was nearly a bobcat's breakfast." I continued, "Was it very big?"
He said, "If I can see it from here (the other side of the park) then it was a very big one!"
The lad then assured me that bobcats normally don't attack humans. Phew! But after breakfast, when I was looking for a picture of a bobcat, this article came up – “Bisbee, Arizona man suffers 'significant' injuries after bobcat attack!” https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2018/06/24/bisbee-man-injured-bobcat-attack-cochise-county-sheriff-office/729767002/
Still, I couldn’t help but chuckle at myself. I missed seeing a bobcat that was so close that I could have reached out and petted it – though I might not have an arm after that lapse of judgement.
And my “slow jog” was so lackadaisical … it didn’t even set off the bobcat's chase instinct!
No, by naturalist, I mean a person who truly enjoys almost every aspect of nature close up. If you’ve ever hiked with my hubs, you’ll know that he wants to take a picture of every tree, cactus, flower, bush, spider, deer, lizard and snake we come across.
Yes, snakes! And 2018 has been a good year from him. He’s had three sightings. The first was en route to a hike at Quantrell Mine, Arizona in the Spring. The jeep he was riding along in rolled over a curled up snake. Laur yelled, “Stop the car!” And he ran back to – I dunno – take a pulse on the thing?
The rattlesnake was very much alive and merely coiled – you know – that thing they do before they strike?! Hubs was undeterred. His first alive-in-nature rattlesnake. Had I been there I’d have been shrieking at him to get away. But he’d have ignored me. Thankfully his travel buddies pointed out that the rattler was shaking its tail, so if he didn’t want to wreck a perfectly good hike, he should come back to the vehicle.
The second was this 5 foot long lime green critter that slithered up past him while he was sitting on a cliff beside Hutch’s Pool, enjoying a sandwich, mid-hike. The snake curled up in a ball under the rock beside him. Hubs could not have been happier. I’m surprised he didn’t offer “Snakey” half his peanut butter sandwich. I could not get far enough away from it without losing sight of the group.
The third was in Korea. We were hiking through an area that had warning signs in Korean that we couldn’t read – but we could figure out through the pictures. Beware! There are poisonous snakes, venomous spiders (of which Laur has many photos), and wild boars. These boars have no fear of humans and like to rampage into them.
Laur being a Northern Ontario bush baby was not daunted in the least. And within a few minutes, a short dark snake slowly slid across our path. And it did not disappear. It just leisurely turned and slithered back to a hole under a log, looking at us as if to say, “You may photograph me if you wish…” And Laur certainly did, practicing his selective deafness to his ophiophobic wife.
I have this theory. If a snake “runs” away from you, it’s likely not poisonous. If, on the other hand, it doesn’t pay you any mind, it IS poisonous. When we got back to our hotel room, I searched the internet to find out what kind of snake it was. It was likely a tiger snake and, yes, it can make you glad you purchased out of country health insurance.
Me, I’m definitely “femina domesticus” – a city gal. (OK, Belleville, Ontario was a very small city.) If I never see another snake, wild pig, bear, Gila monster, spider, killer bee, cockroach or centipede again, it will be too soon. My mom, Granny Marj, would add to that list gophers, bunnies, mice, and moles - not to mention mosquitos, flies, tent caterpillars, and black flies.
I would never go out of my way to hurt a critter – except for the bugs. I’m a vegan – I can’t even bring myself to eat farm animals. And there is one fellow creature that I can never get enough of. Cats. Folks who know me know that my family, growing up, always had a cat. A new one every year thanks to Hwy 2, but I digress.
And when we lived in Sudbury – with a lot of help from my friends – I ran a cat shelter and cat adoption store. The cat shelter was our house. We had a kitten room, a sick cat room, a well cat room, and a house full of cats that I couldn’t quite classify.
I’m not naïve about cats. I realize that they are truly carnivores and they only love you because you feed them. And had I been the size of a barbie doll, my beloved cats would have tortured me almost to death and then chomped on me while I was still living.
But I must be oblivious. Take this incident WHICH REALLY HAPPENEED the other morning.
I was doing my slow jog around the RV park listening to a podcast when a man waved at me. I turned off my podcast and he said, "Didn't you see that!!!???"
I said, "See what!?" He said, "The bobcat standing on the wall. You ran right by it!" Like within two feet of it! I said, "Oh my goodness, here I was thinking about my own breakfast and I was nearly a bobcat's breakfast." I continued, "Was it very big?"
He said, "If I can see it from here (the other side of the park) then it was a very big one!"
The lad then assured me that bobcats normally don't attack humans. Phew! But after breakfast, when I was looking for a picture of a bobcat, this article came up – “Bisbee, Arizona man suffers 'significant' injuries after bobcat attack!” https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2018/06/24/bisbee-man-injured-bobcat-attack-cochise-county-sheriff-office/729767002/
Still, I couldn’t help but chuckle at myself. I missed seeing a bobcat that was so close that I could have reached out and petted it – though I might not have an arm after that lapse of judgement.
And my “slow jog” was so lackadaisical … it didn’t even set off the bobcat's chase instinct!