Froggy Pond Part 3

I am flagging my final memory of Froggy Pond with a reminder that nature is not always pretty, nice, neat or cute. It is what it is - raw biology, relentless geological change, and elements of climate and weather that pay no heed to our human frailties. Children allowed to explore the realm of biology uninhibited by adult concepts of “scarey“ or “not nice“, are interested in just about everything. Gooey, stinky, mushed, dead, bloody, and a host of other “not nice” adult signal words have no place in the mind of an intrepid young explorer. Learning by exploration will concretely define these words in due time. It is with this in mind that I introduce the following section by warning those who have never experienced more than the pleasant intersection of nature with human nature that they may find it disturbing.

 Froggy Pond was a mecca for garter snakes. I'm sure they came there for the fresh water and a feast of tadpoles. One side of the little hole we called Froggy Pond was composed of intertwined roots of overhanging shrubs. Every few minutes a garter snake, sometimes two, would come up out of the roots at the edge of the little spring hole and freeze for a few moments in a shape something like a question mark. In an instant they would disappear back down into the tangle of roots.

CaptPiper photo on Flickr

Eastern Garter Snake

Like everyone else in our world Bruce and I knew that snakes were bad critters and that the only good snake was a dead snake. Top that off with the boyish challenge of "getting" one of these fast moving creatures and you have the essence of this story. We were not about to try catching a live snake by hand so we scrounged around for ammunition. Garter snakes were pelted with sticks, stones, and chunks of black railroad cinder. We temporarily distracted them, so that we had to wait longer between their reappearances, but for the most part they just ignored us and went about their business as usual. Finally Bruce, always the more adventurous and daring of our duo, got a decent size stick, crept round behind the spring hole and dealt a mortal blow to the next snake that popped up. Bruce collected the snake and brought it over by the tracks. We solemnly examined it from end to end, noting the stripes, the little eyes, and the mouth. Had we though to open the mouth and look at the almost invisible row of very tiny pin-like teeth we would have realized this snake couldn’t do any harm. But that was a lesson for another day. At the moment we were filled with the idea that we had done a good thing, and we were trying to convince ourselves that we really had accomplished it. I proudly held the dead snake by the tail as we walked home through the hot summer afternoon. Bruce dropped off at his house and I continued on alone. A block from home I passed the house of my other best friend Lew. His visiting aunt was sweeping off the little portico by the side door. “You should see what I have” I called out to her. I‘m sure there must have been a tone of pride in my voice. “What is it?” she asked as she put down the broom and descended three steps. I held the snake up as she approached. “Ewwww! A snake!” So exclaiming, she bypassed the steps, ran up the grassy bank, entered the house and slammed the door. I was completely baffled by her reaction. After all the snake was dead.

When I got home I showed my mother the snake. She didn’t like snakes but at least she had encountered them in her life time and wasn’t afraid of a dead one. She simply told me I’d have to bury it. I folded the snake and for some unknown reason wrapped it in cloth. Then I dug a hole six inches deep in the place where we dumped the coal ashes from our furnace. It was easy digging. After dropping in the snake and refilling the hole I placed a brick as a marker. I carried on my normal life with my friends for about two weeks. Then one day, out of the blue as they say, I wanted to know what was going on with the snake. I got my mother’s trowel, removed the brick, and began the exhumation. I carefully unrolled the cloth with no particular expectation as to what I would find. The snake had changed. It was green. I rolled it back up in the cloth reburied it and never dug it up again. Now I had some idea of what happens to dead things when they are buried. All knowledge can be rated on two scales: interest and importance. The knowledge I gained from this venture was certainly interesting to me but I’m not sure how it rates in importance. I’ve never had a specific need for it, yet in the long run it became part of my understanding of the natural processes of life, death, and recycling in nature.