Picture-postcard perfect day....

Today's weather was glorious... after all the rain we've had, the air today was crisp and clean-smelling, the sky was such a pretty blue with just the right amount of clouds, and if we weren't smack in the middle of the ant-infested Hill Country, today would have been a day to spread a blanket on the grass, have a picnic, and read a book under one of the pecan trees. (My apologies to the Hill Country.  The entire state of Texas is infested with fire ants.)

However..... a picnic on a pretty day isn't such a good idea.  Chances are that the blanket would be on top of a fire ant mound... the six million ants would find their way from beneath the blanket to the top of the blanket, and before they feasted on your lunch, they'd be biting the heck out of your ankles. Most likely, one or two of the ants would hide inside the pages of your book and then you'd be bringing them into the house.  So.... forget about having a picnic in the grass.  Just enjoy these beautiful days from the porch.

It's very Spring-like outside...... the roses and the azaleas are blooming again...  the fields are green from all the rain, the morning glories and the little blue-flowered weeds out in the backyard are bursting with pride-of-place.  Best of all, the pond is filled up and looks like a wet mirror out there in the middle of the front pasture.  I keep waiting for the ducks to return. So far, there has been a small family of white egrets in the pond.  Catching frogs, I guess.

It isn't very dark outside yet, but I can see the moon up in the sky.... it's going to be a good one tonight, nice and bright.  (Think of the bright moon in the movie "Moonstruck.")  And the stars... there were so many stars early this morning and I'm sure most of the constellations will be visible tonight as well.  (Not that I'm going outside in the middle of the yard for a look-see..... too much wildlife out there after dark.)

One of my cousins has a star-gazing business out in Arizona.  He has a truck-load of telescopes that he sets up out in the Arizona hills just about every night..... groups come from all over to watch the sky...  he brings his equipment to whatever location would be best for night-time sky viewing on any given night.

I spoke to him the other day and he told me that during one of his recent sky-shows, a huge rattlesnake meandered through the group and managed to wind itself around the legs of one of the telescopes.  Thankfully, no one was bitten or threatened by the snake....... it just slithered around the people in the very large group and picked the one telescope that it liked best. (It wanted a snake's-eye view?)

My cousin said that people were running away screaming... jumping into their cars... running anywhere they could just to not be in the same space as that snake.  One of the people at the show got a long pole and somehow managed to get the snake to unwind itself from the telescope stand and wrap itself around the pole...... and he took it off into the woods.  The snake didn't come back, but neither did some of the people who were out there intending to watch the sky.

I asked my cousin if that had ever happened before.... he's been doing this star-gazing for a good number of years and has been quite successful with it, getting more business than he can actually keep up with.  He said this was his first rattlesnake encounter.  I laughed and thought of the old movie "E.T."  Except that the quirky little E.T was cuter than a rattlesnake could ever hope to be.

Rattlesnakes.... we have them here in the Hill Country also.  I haven't seen one yet..... but that's because I'm not out there looking at the moon and the stars after dark.