The day after I returned from my big adventure, the weather gave us a break for a day and the high was in the 60s (16 C) so I caught a ride to the temple and then walked home.

I was surprised to see a harmless and beneficial garter snake laying besides the edge of the road as the ground was still frozen and there was snow on the north slopes.

garter-snake-with-leaf.jpg

I imagine it chose the spot to warm up in as the left over grit from the salt/grit mix the state road trucks spread after snow falls had accumulated by the side of the road and black absorbs the most heat from the sun.

It looked clean so had obviously just recently crawled out there. It was unmoving as I looked at it but assumed it had become motionless. If it had been in grass, it would have been invisible.

I couldn’t resist touching it with a stick to make it move, but it was either dead, which I doubted from looking at it, or playing possom.

I flipped it over but he never responded at all. Males come out first in the spring and wait for the females so I am assuming it was a he. Despite my urge to verify if he was dead, I resisted and left him alone and continued on my way. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with someone messing with me if I was pretending to be dead so I figured he wouldn’t either.

Vidya used to be really scared of garter snakes, commonly seen in gardens, until she was bitten by one once. The teeth were so small and sharp that she said she didn’t even feel the bite. As they eat slugs (booo hisss slugs suck the voracious b——s) they should be a welcome sight in any garden.

One of the worst predators of garter snakes is cats. City people dump unwanted cats in the country in the sentimental illusion they are setting them free, but the effect on the environment of a feral cat is pretty negative. Not only do they eat beneficial garter snakes, they can also kill between 100-200 songbirds in a year.

Remember that next time you see a stray cat on the side of the road.

“Srila Prabhupada: We are not talking of religion! You don’t know religion. We are talking of machines. An animal has no religion. Later we can talk of that. Now talk of machines. Religion is far away from you. And even if you could manufacture one living machine, these machines are now being created in such numbers that you are trying to stop their creation by abortion. So, so many are already being produced by nature. If you can create one, what will be your credit?

“Adi-Kesava Swami: They will say, “We will make a better machine than God has made.”
Srila Prabhupada: Oh. You cannot capture a garter snake, and now you are saying you will catch a cobra.

“Adi-Kesava Swami: “Well, you can’t make a brain either.”

“Srila Prabhupada: We don’t say that we have a great brain. We are a servant. Our Master will show the brain. But you are a godless rascal. You have the onus of proof on you.”

On “Brainwashing”