Ssssssnake!

Clouds streamed out of the South but the day was mostly dry.  I got rained on in the pool and so did the camera.  But I was glad I had it when I discovered I wasn't alone in the water. No thicker than a pencil, the snake crossed the patio and went down the steps at lunch.  Later I encountered it in the pool and managed to flip it out.  It sat in a knot on the concrete for quite some time but finally disappeared when I was looking at something else. The best match was a juvenile black racer.

I fished a glass snail out of the water too and some June beetles, both green and brown.  Dragonflies enjoyed the humidity and the bugs it brought.  Two buckeye butterflies fed on the mint.  They ignored the wasps but occasionally quarreled with each other.  A dark swallowtail was not easy to identify, maybe palamedes, maybe black.  A sizeable skink climbed the wall of the house and explored the new window.  Later I saw one on the steps that may have been the same, 

Wrens went back and forth to their house and fussed at me when I came close.  Titmice came for seeds and hummers for sugar water.  A great and a snowy egret watched the runoff from the dam.  An osprey circled against the clouds.

I was calm with the snake but when a spider started hiking up my leg in the shower,that was another story.  I brushed it away and it waved its front legs at me in a crab spider pose. I told it, "don't walk on me and I won't step on you."  I left it sulking in the corner.