While home on the farm one of my favorite things to do is to walk around the rice field. My sister and I spent many a summer day at the back of our field messing with tadpoles in the ditch. Tadpoles were fun.

Saturday my goal was to find a snake. Now, just to be crystal clear, I am not a parcel mouth. I am no fan of the snake.

Not.At.All.

But, several of my Northeast Arkansas Facebook friends have recently posted snake photos. Lots of snake photos. Clearly, this is the year of the snake. As a writer, I try to be observant—listening, smelling, tasting, feeling so that my writing is believable. If I were truly observant, I would see a snake on my walk, right?

So off I went on my first snake hunt.

Right off I found “farm glass”, which I like to compare to beach glass.

The killdeer were downright noisy. “Kill-deer, kill-deer, kill-deer!” they chanted.

“Shhhh! You’ll scare the snakes,” I said. Their track patterns were as wild as the jabbering overhead.

Vibrant wildflowers filled the edge of a shallow ditch.

But no snake.

I stopped in the far corner at my favorite spot and waited. Watched. Listened. Could the sky be any more clear?

Then finally, there he was. Sunning. At least three feet long. My snake.

I leaned in close and snapped a picture. He slithered down the ditch bank. A successful farm walk. And yes, I had the heebie-jeebies until I made it safely back to the house.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Musical Pairing:

Heebie Jeebies, Ladies in Tune