Slither

     Mardi decided to have some sport the other day with a garter snake.  As she scampered and play bowed, the snake plastered itself against the house's foundation and stayed very still.  Mike and I took on the job of relocating the snake while Mardi cooled her heels inside the house.  The plan was to pick up the reptile with a leaf rake and deposit it into the wheel barrow, then we would wheel it to a wooded area and release it.  Who knew that the wriggly thing could practically stand on its tail end and jump?  It made various attempts to spring out of the wheel barrow while we tried to push it back with the rake.  Finally, it bested us, flew over the side of its prison, landed on the ground, and wrapped itself around the front wheel of the barrow.  With a little prodding, it let go and went slithering around the fenced in part of the yard.  Each time it tried to make an escape, it got caught in our dog proof mesh.  Mike finally wrangled it through the gate and into the woods.
     This adventure inspired us to do some snake research.  My mother used to warn me about avoiding snakes that could be lurking in the yard.  She talked about deadly "water moccasins" and "sand vipers."  Back then I took her word for it.  Now I realize she was a bit misinformed.  Sand vipers are found in Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East - we're safe from their venomous bites here in Hainesport.  By water moccasin, she might have been referring to the cottonmouth snake, but they don't live in New Jersey either.  We found a wonderful website that details New Jersey's belly crawling inhabitants.

http://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/ensp/fieldguide_herps.htm

In Hainesport, you're likely to find Garter Snakes in the back yard.  They are active from April to September.  They range in length from 18"-51".  The Eastern Kingsnake lives in Burlington County.  He's a big boy growing up to 80" in length.  You might also encounter a Northern Black Racer.  It's best to steer clear of this one because because it will defend itself if cornered.  Bites aren't poisonous, but they really hurt.  I once disturbed a Hognose Snake while racking leaves.  This guy stood up and fanned out his head and neck like a cobra.  He put on a striking and hissing display that scared the crap out of me.  Something this aggressive must be dangerous, right?  I decided that I had to kill the Hognose.  I grabbed a shovel and intended to bring it down on the snake, severing him in two.  I thought it would be pretty much the same as squashing a caterpillar or slapping a mosquito.  I stood there with raised shovel, but I couldn't commit murder.  Our conversation went something like this:

Hiss, hiss, strike.
"Prepare to die, sucker."
Hiss, strike.
"I'm gonna bring this shovel down and kill you."
Hissssssssss.
"Okay, I'm ready now.  I'm gonna kill you now."  Shovel waivers.  "Alright.  I can do it now.  You're toast."

After a half dozen false starts, I slammed the shovel down and killed the tiny aggressor.  Later, when I found out it was all a show, a big display of snake bravado, I was consumed with guilt for killing the harmless, little thing.

Eastern Hognose

Garter Snake

  

Eastern Kingsnake

Northern Black Racer

There are two poisonous snakes in New Jersey.  The Northern Copperhead lives in Sussex, Warren, Passaic, and Hunterdon Counties.  These snakes are hardly ever seen because they are rare and reclusive.  They are on the endangered species list.  Though their bites are poisonous, they are hardly ever fatal.

Northern Copperhead

New Jersey's other venomous snake is the Timber Rattlesnake.  A bite from one of these guys will kill you if you are not treated in time.  These snakes are also endangered.  You might remember a big flap that occurred in the Sancutuary housing development in Evesham Township back in 1998.  The home building disturbed the nesting area of the snakes.  Things were eventually resolved, more in the builder's favor than the snakes' favor.  In 2011 a Good Samaritan in Little Egg Harbor Township stopped his car and attempted to move a Timber Rattlesnake from the road.  He was bitten for his efforts.  Fortunately, the motorist was treated in time and survived the bite.

Timber Rattlesnake - Check Out the Rattle

To sum up, you shouldn't have anything to worry about if you find a snake in your back yard in Hainesport.  You probably have more to fear from the turkeys.

Monkey Business

     I like chimpanzees.  I think baboons are annoying.  I'm fascinated by, but afraid of gorillas.  I dutifully make the rounds of zoos, but I really want to be in the monkey house.
     I saw the movie "Gorillas in the Mist" and I have to give Dian Fossey her props.  It took guts to get close to a silverback.  Whenever I visited the Philadelphia Zoo, I spent lots of time staring at Massa, the ape who held the title of oldest gorilla in captivity in the early 1980's.  Once I saw him sitting next to one of his keepers.  The two of them sat there in silent companionship.  I thought he looked sad, harmless and sad.  This was near the end of his 52 years, so maybe he was telepathically communicating that he was tired, or his teeth hurt, or life wasn't as much fun as it used to be.  To me, he was still frightening, huge, and powerful.  If something set him off, could he bite off a human head?  I could empathize from a distance, but I didn't want to touch his arm.
     I had my chance to get close to our simian brothers and sisters when I went on safari in Botswana.  Baboons were everywhere.  The cheeky monkeys descended on our camp every afternoon around three o'clock.  We watched them moving along in a great herd dragging bath towels and other items that the camp's residents carelessly left out in the open.  Occasionally, they used their opposable thumbs to unlatch a door and raid the inside of a tent.  The camp manager lost her favorite teddy bear to a thieving baboon.  One particular tent became the adolescent apes' playground.  The youngsters dropped onto the roof from the high tree branches, slid from peak to the edge, and hurtled off, as if the roof was a ski jump.  While on the fly, they reached out and grabbed the nearest branch, scampered to the top of the canopy, and repeated the routine.  The inhabitant of this tent couldn't take a siesta during the hottest part of the day because the racket  sounded like living inside a bass drum.

Baboon inducing roof rage

     

Baboon burglars

The worst thing about these baboons was their bathroom habits.  Campers had to be aware of who was sitting in the trees above and often had to dodge falling excrement.
     I fell in love with chimpanzees in 1961.  That's when the television show, "The Hathaways," premiered.  The show starred Peggy Cass,  Jack Weston, and three chimps.  The comedy was a semi-flop, lasting twenty-six episodes.  By it's end, I wanted a knuckle dragging sibling.  I frequently told my mother that I wanted a monkey.  Instead we had an English bulldog and a succession of stray cats.  I was pretty well into my twenties when I realized that chimps are wild animals with great strength and an unpredictable nature once they reach puberty.
     I no longer want to brush the back hair of a chimp wearing Pampers, but I still get the warm fuzzies when I see their comical faces.  Disneynature is opening a movie called "Chimpanzees" this weekend.  I'm usually not a fan of nature films, probably the vestiges of being forced to sit through too many episodes of "Wild Kingdom" at my grandparents' house, but I'll probably go to see "Chimpanzees."  I suppose it is safe to say "The Hathaways" this movie is not.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/chimpanzee/photos/five-film-facts-chimpanzee-slideshow/five-film-facts-chimpanzee-photo-1334702910.html#crsl=%252Fmovie%252Fchimpanzee%252Fphotos%252Ffive-film-facts-chimpanzee-slideshow%252Ffive-film-facts-chimpanzee-photo-1334702910.html

Diaries and Blogs

     I just learned about a guy named Samuel Pepys.  He was an English naval administrator and a member of Parliament who lived from 1633-1703.  Though he did well professionally, what he's famous for is his diary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys

     Beginning in 1660, and continuing for almost ten years, Pepys recorded the details of his life in his journal.  He wrote in a type of  shorthand, so that prying eyes could not read his entries.  After almost a decade of record keeping, the writing stopped.
     Up until the blogging started, diaries were private things.  Pepys wrote in code.  I doubt many high school girls go to that trouble, but they do lock up their books and secrete them away in the bottom of a drawer.
     Pepys memoir includes important historical information about the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague.  There were also juicy accounts of romantic dalliances conducted right under his wife's nose.  His books were also full of boring details about what he had for dinner.  Life can't be a three ring circus every day of the week.
     Samuel Pepys diary is available online, the entries matching today's month and day.

http://www.pepysdiary.com/

     Someone out there has even given Pepys a Twitter account.

http://twitter.com/#!/samuelpepys

     Pepys code has been broken, and his life is an open book - three hundred years after the fact.  Though writing styles have changed a bit, it's apparent that not much has changed since Pepys day.  Check out some of his more famous quotes:
     "I find my wife hath something in her gizzard that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up, but I will not, for my content-sake, give it."  I've heard that the husband/wife dynamic is exactly like this in some households.
     "He that will not stoop for a pin will never be worth a pound."  I tell Mike the same thing when he rolls his eyes over me picking up pennies in parking lots.
     "In appearance, at least, he being on all occasions glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another, and know it on both sides."  Have you been following the reality TV show "Survivor?"
     I'm not operating under the delusion that anyone is going to be reading the contents of "Happy in Hainesport" in three hundred years.  Random House is not going to knock at the door asking to buy the rights.  I just want to get this writing thing out of my system.  I hope I can provide some entertainment in the process.

Senior Envy

     It's interesting how one's perspective changes.  I just saw a music video parody of Fun's song, "We Are Young."  In it, a bunch of thirty somethings whine that they are not young any more and that they've gotten nowhere in life.   They threaten to commit suicide by age forty if they haven't "made it" (or at least started a blog!).

http://screen.yahoo.com/we-re-not-young-28966610.html?pb_list=23dce613-c500-43f0-9134-70e58b73187a

     Maybe I shared some of their concerns once upon a time, but these days I don't care about my lost youth or missed opportunities.   I don't want to go back to school to become a lawyer.  All I want is my senior discount.  Yes, I have a full blown case of senior envy.  When I turned fifty, I received my favorite birthday gift ever - a membership to the AARP.  I'm trilled to be in that club, but it's going to be a few more years before I can buy a cheaper matinee ticket or flash my Medicare card for a half price bus ride.
     Why am I chomping at the bit to reach this milestone?  Because I think it's about time I got something for everything age has taken away.  I can't eat burritos anymore.  I can't wear a thong.  I've had to give up theme parks because my bones are too brittle to safely enjoy the rides.  Besides that, the bathrooms are too few and far between.  I wish I could look in the mirror and see only tired eyes and laugh lines.  I also see unwanted facial hair.  I need an application of hair coloring at the first sign of white roots.  Even my junk mail has changed.  I'm solicited for burial plots, electric wheelchairs, and hearing aids.
     The folks in the music video shouldn't fret.  In forty years no one will expect anything from them.  Things come full circle.  We go from Similac to Ensure, from Pampers to Depends.  The polite French refer to their senior citizens as persons of the troisieme age or third age.  The tell-it-like-it-is Americans say that oldsters have entered the second childhood.  That being the case, I don't want to be twenty-two again.  I want to be under twelve.  Besides getting a break on admission fees, maybe I'll develop the ability to play hand held video games.
 

Knitting

     My Cinnaminson Library Knitting Club made today's edition of the Burlington County Times.  Times photographer, Nancy Rokas, took some great pictures of the kids.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/knitting/image_ed0bfb21-c562-597f-937b-61abc23384fb.html

     Elaine Hollowell and I got to star in a short video.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/multimedia/knitting-class-at-the-cinnaminson-library/youtube_dc189faf-fba8-5ce6-9b33-83b0abc0d635.html

     Peg Quann's article weaves together the mother/daughter knitting experience, how I met Elaine and got involved in Cinnaminson's programs, and even plugs our upcoming hand sewing class.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/at-the-library-moms-and-daughters-knit-friendships/article_83022109-c610-5243-a059-0105b428c679.html?mode=print

     It is a privilege to be involved with these kids.  Thanks Aunt Dot for blowing off bedtime and teaching me to knit.

Woodpecker Reveille

     I woke up this morning to drilling on the roof.  When Mike and I heard the same sound the day before, we thought it was something vibrating in the furnace room.  Now we realized that the overhead sound was moving from place to place.  We got out the back door just in time to see a woodpecker taking off from the roof.
     The little devil came back a few more times during the very early morning hours.  By eight o'clock, he was done.  I was pretty sure there were no bugs on the roof, so why was Woody jackhammering the shingles?  Woodpeckers bore into trees to find food, excavate a nesting cavity, or attract mates.  They also drill into wood roofs or siding for the same reason.  They tap on non-wood surfaces to establish territory.  This is called drumming and it occurs in March, April, and May.  My red headed visitor intends to make my yard his domain.
     Though I might have had murder in my heart this morning at the crack of dawn, I'm forbidden to act upon the desire.  Woodpeckers are federally protected under the North American Migratory Bird Act.  The only thing I can do is make my roof less appealing for my morning percussionist. One solution is to hang shiny objects or stick mylar tape around vent stacks and chimneys since woodpeckers hate shiny things.  They also hate wet surfaces under their feet, so you can spray water on the roof.  Balloons might work, but the neighbors would start comparing this place to the house in the movie "Up."  Pest control companies suggest playing CD's of predator calls to scare the birds.  They also suggest buying a hawk decoy.  I read that you have to move the hawk every day so the woodpeckers don't catch on that he's made of plastic.

http://www.bamabirds.com/birdinfo/woodpeckers.htm 
http://www.wildlifedamagecontrol.net/woodpeckers.php

     Fifty percent of the time woodpeckers stop drumming in two weeks whether homeowners do anything or not.  The other fifty percent of the time you might feel like a player in this Andy Panda/Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_HciKS6_E

     There is a legend about how the woodpecker came to be.  One day an old woman was baking cakes.  A Saint, faint with hunger, was wandering the roads and was drawn to her house by the smell of baking.  He asked for something to eat, but the old woman didn't want to give him such a big cake.  She made a smaller one, then decided that this cake was also too big.  Finally, she made a third, tiny cake.  When she took it out of the oven, it had puffed up to be much larger than she expected.  She told the Saint that her cakes were too big to give away.  This made the Saint angry.  He told the woman that she was too greedy to have human form.  She had food, shelter, and a warm fire, but she was too selfish to share.  He cursed her to a life of living as a bird, picking in the woods for nuts and berries and boring trees for her meager existence.  No sooner had the Saint said this than the woman flew up the chimney and came out the top as a woodpecker.
     If I could just get that bitch off my roof...    

Chains of Love

     All crocheted items begin with a chain of yarn.  From the foundation chain, the magic is worked.  The ladies of the Burlington County Crochet Guild work their magic twice per month at the Willingboro Senior Center.
     I began attending meetings in 2011.  It was a way for me to spend a couple of hours with a friend who was part of the Guild.  What started as a visit with one friend has turned into a visit with many friends.  The ladies are a warm, welcoming bunch.  We always spend time chatting at the beginning of a session, but before long, we settle into comfortable silence as we concentrate on our work.
     Everything we produce is given away.  We make afghans for homeless shelters, lap blankets for chemo patients, and beanies for newborns.  One project was making skull caps for our troops in Afghanistan.  They wear this simple hat under their helmets for warmth in the cold, mountainous region.
     The Burlington County Times featured the Guild in yesterday's paper.  You can watch a short video of the group and check out some pictures at phillyBurbs.com.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/willingboro-crocheting-group-spreads-love-with-its-donations/article_1e585fbd-f60f-5e0c-a77e-c0c9cb012bf6.html

     If you want to get involved, meetings are on the second Tuesday of the month from 1:00 p.m - 3:00 p.m and on the fourth Wednesday of the month from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at the Willingboro Senior Center.  Members of the Guild supply there own yarn.  We are always scouring thrift stores and Columbus Market for bargains.  We gladly accept all yarn donations, even small, left-overs from bigger projects. If you want to donate yarn, let me know.