Next in an occasional series."Winterizing" the garden and cutting down a bunch o' wild trees that were going to obscure the view of our Christmas tree from the bay window, we encountered one of these (right), which should actually be called a boxing mantis, because it alighted on the front gate, fixed its gaze on Eldest Weed, followed him with its beady little eyes as EW walked back and forth inspecting him, and reached out its little forelegs in boxing gestures just as pictured here. I could almost hear his nasally little voice threatening
Bring it, Punk.Not prayerful in the slightest.
Further excitement provided by a baby pair of these, lurking under the abandoned-months-ago sandbox when we overturned it:
They're called, unsurprisingly, ring-necked snakes, and they're quite harmless. Ours were hardly bigger than your larger worm. They were quite put out by the dumping, however. Sat up, stuck their wee tongues at us, and then made a run for it.
