No longer measure inches of rainfall. For the past 3 months, just dump the rain gauge that's filled each week. Average ~ 48"/yr. Had that by June. River and creeks are gushing and ponds are full. Day trip into the swamp was cool. Maybe once every ten years the channels are deep enough to canoe in deep. Place is teaming with life but we're only about 20 miles from a British Pub. Who'd-a thunk it. The South is way cool even in sweltering heat. Don't get me wrong, love to visit other places, but this is home. Realized something a while back, in a canoe it's 6AM, close my eyes for 5 minutes and it's 7:45. At the dentist office, it's 9:30 and I close my eyes for 5 minutes, 9:31 when their opened. "Never blame anyone in your life. Good people give happiness, bad people give experience, freak-a-zoids teach lessons but the best people will give you memories."
Trampoline?! Yes Sire Bob! I'm coming down!...I'm going up! Ain't life grand?! Saw a Water Moccasin about 4 feet long and nearly big around as my thigh. She was mating and the male was a puny little fellow. The worst snakes around here are the pygmy rattlesnakes. Don't know why they call them rattlesnakes because they don't have rattles. Easy to step on and can cost you a few toes if you're not wearing boots.
Sounds like Florida... Growing up in The Hidden South, I learned to assume all snakes venomous. Always.
SC and an excellent assumption for snakes. Florida, can't walk outside a friend's house without seeing a pygmy but if you see them first, they can't bite you. The scary sound is a rattlesnake in tall weeds near dark and you don't know at first which way to step. An eastern diamondback was killed at a chicken farm in Alabama. About 6' long and 1' in diameter. Nothing like a chicken diet complete with growth hormones. Damn thing could try to bite you on the calf but its fangs would be on the other side of your leg. We've had a brown water snake sited on the river here and from its pictures you would think it was some kind of python or boa. You can google water snake/savannah river/Augusta, GA to see. Had no idea they could get that big. Canoed a gushing creek this Spring and going through a chute, a tree had fallen and almost blocked our path. And wouldn't you know it, a damn hornet's was 4' above the water and no way not to hit it. Luckily most were gone and we had water deep enough to get away without a sting. Honey bees, yellow jackets, fire ants are Chihuahuas, hornets are junkyard dogs and mean business. You could hear them hitting overturned canoe, really pissed. Crazy old coot pulled us up to a tree years back just below the Dead Lakes in We-Wa. Before we knew what he was doing, pulled up to a wasp nest bigger than a dinner plate and it was full, probably a hundred wasps on it. Only thing to do was to sit still. Took about 30 minutes but damn if he didn't break the nest off. lower it close to the water and gently shake. Wasp larva are pretty good fish bait but never fished with him again. Remember the "funny face" he made when he scooped two fingers of honey out of a hive and stuck a bee in his mouth. Funny shit is everywhere down South.
