into the treeless forest

this morning we went exploring. i took the camera, hoping to get some pictures of whatever we might happen to run across. bones. bugs. birds. deer. hmmmmm...we rode around on the 4-wheeler...down the road...across the fields...through the once wooded forests. once wooded, because they cut down the pine trees when they get big enough to cut down and haul them to the paper mills. (Georgia Pacific...2 factories within 45 miles of here.)  we had a nice ride...the weather's hot...no breeze...so it felt good riding along and cutting through the still air. nothing to take pictures of, so we started to head home. then i spotted some 'white something or other' on the ground...into the field a little ways. usually it turns out to be styrofoam, paper cups or plastic bags. but we got lucky. some deer bones. just a few rib pieces and vertebrae. cool! they'd been there for a while...bleached white and clean from the sun...weather.

i gathered up a few of the bones still in good shape. i noticed that grass was growing up out of the middle of one of the vertebraes.

i left that one to continue to become part of the field...

sam snapping away with the camera while i'm collecting...so i feel obligated to add one...

all sweaty and disheveled...(just like i wanna look in pictures, HA!)

a couple of nice butterfly pictures on the way home. the Gulf Fritillary...which seems to be about the only butterfly i'm snapping shots of lately! they're all over our yard too.

feeding on lantana.

as we're coming up the road, just about to our driveway...there's a snake in the middle of the road...crossing from the field to our yard. a pretty big, thick snake. dark markings. we came to a quick stop and i zoomed in...snapped a couple of pic's.  we inched forward so i could get a few more shots before it went under the brush. i thought it was a hognose. even after i looked it up in the Florida Reptile book...i thought that's what it probably was. but i wasn't 100% sure, so i forwarded a picture to someone who really knows his snakes!!  it's a Cottonmouth/Moccasin.  

WHOA!!!!!  at least i'm not the kind of person who wants to pick up, capture or handle everything i see. i like snakes, but i don't rush to pick 'em up!  i prefer to take pictures...and i appreciate the confidence and knowledge of those  who can identify these incredible & misunderstood creatures at first sight!

across the street, in the field, is a big old mud pit...and behind us...the far back acre of property is pretty swampy. that's probably where he's headed. 

so, we had a pretty exciting ride this morning after all!

i can't understand why some people hate snakes so much that they want to kill them...no matter what kind of snake it is...if  it's a snake, they just want to chop it's head off!  everything has a place in nature. everyone needs to learn to appreciate that. understand it.

i was born in the year of the snake.  :]

~~travel safe~~