A season to embrace — but very carefully

Springtime in Georgia is worth the wait through the gloom of winter. The colors of masses of wisteria, banks of plum and dogwood, all these and more set against a backdrop of soft, new green — this alone is worth the price of admission. But there’s more to follow as waves of birds arrive out of the distance and wildlife stirs and searches and grows.

As I glance up from typing these words, in mid-morning instead of late at night as is more normal, I look straight into a forest of green woods, starting fifty feet away. The surface appearance is placid, but I know the area is teeming with life. I have observed a doe as she lay down to rest just a few yards from me and watched me watching her. My attention is constantly drawn from the computer screen to the flickering movement of squirrels, a woodpecker testing an older tree, the dappled pattern of spring sunlight filtered through leaves shifting in the breeze. And hummingbirds. A little hummingbird hen comes repeatedly to the window a few feet from my face and works her way from one side to the other. I’m guessing she’s gathering bits of the spider webs to use in a tiny nest. Good thing I never got around to cleaning the webs away.

All of this makes it easy to feel at one with Nature, to bask in her benevolence. Except that Nature isn’t benevolent. That just isn’t in her — well, nature. The naïve consider Nature a friend, providing us with both physical and emotional nurture because she wants to. But she doesn’t care one way or the other. I’ve re-learned that lesson many times over the years, but springtime still lures me into momentary lapses. Such lapses can be disastrous.

An example: I usually let my two small dogs run free for brief periods throughout the day, generally within my sight, mostly in the yard and field out front, although they occasionally wander into the woods for a few minutes. But when I walk to the main road, a round trip of several hundred yards, I take them with me on leashes to keep them from running ahead and being hit by a car. We go for the newspaper and for the mail and maybe another time or two each day. Two days ago, we had just left the house, the two of them attempting to pull me faster down the driveway, when I looked up and saw the back half of a quite large snake sliding slowly across the asphalt, the front end already out of sight in tall grass and underbrush. I have the common visceral reaction to the sight of a snake, but not terror. I’m reluctant to kill living beings unless they are armed and shooting at me. Fire ants are exceptions to this rule, as are known poisonous snakes if they are really close to my dwelling.

I had no interest in hindering the snake crossing my driveway, but I was curious as to its identity. I hauled the dogs back by their leashes and walked forward to get a closer look at its markings. I suddenly became aware that not only were its markings those of a timber rattler, but the tail I was standing so near bore a number of rattles. I was in no mood to count them. I was gradually coming to realize how stupid I was to keep standing there, even though the snake continued its slow, majestic movement toward deeper woods. I could see its head as it continued forward, somehow unbothered by or unaware of our presence. I estimated its length at about three feet, although measurements are hard to gauge when your pupils are so enlarged.

I’ve given this whole subject a lot of thought since the rattler and I crossed paths, so to speak. Spring is still a wondrous season, and the great outdoors is really … great. But I’ll be more alert outside now, at least until the adrenaline dosage drops back, say in about a month. In the meantime, the little hummingbird has stopped coming to my window, presumably finished with nest building. I really should go out and clean those spider webs away, but I’ll wait till winter. Less chance then that the rattler will be waiting for me in the bushes beneath the window.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 6:53 PM with the headline "A season to embrace — but very carefully."