Duck, Duck, Goose! Lizard! Alligator!

In, on and around our pond we have ducks, seagulls, turtles, a pink bird that is not a flamingo (or else he had a bad beak job), squirrels and several white birds that we have yet to identify. I have found great comfort in their presence because it reassured me that no responsible mother duck would lay her eggs in a pond that had alligators. (Survival tip: A young man on a plane told me that if I ever saw an alligator, I should run away in a zig zag pattern to confuse him and slow him down. I told him that was perfect, because I already run in a zig zag pattern.)

I'm almost used to all the little geckos that greet me every time I step outside...and sometimes inside. I've learned that if I stomp my feet before I open the door, they usually head for the bushes. Joan became an excellent stomper while she was here. One night I found a frog in the kitchen. I invited Drew to come get it, and when he reached down to pick it up, it hopped behind some boxes. "Rats," he said. I gave him the look and pointed in Joan's direction. She yelled from the other room, "What? Did you get it?" "Got it!" Drew lied. I smiled approvingly. "Good answer."

The ones that make us laugh are the Canadian geese. According to a neighbor, they migrated south for the winter about 7 or 8 years ago and never went back. (I hear that happens to a lot of Canadian people, too.) When we first saw them in our back yard, I yelled for Drew to grab some bread out of the pantry while I got the camera. He quietly held out a piece to see if he could get them to take it from his hand. Within a few minutes, not only were they eating out of his hand, they were nipping at his ankles to speed up the service and we were running for our lives!


Another neighbor came by one morning while Joan was upstairs putting on her make-up and said, "You do know that we have alligators in our ponds. Not to make you nervous (too late) but if there's not one there today, there was one yesterday or there will be one tomorrow because they move from pond to pond. The snake you don't have to worry about is the black racer. He's about 3 feet long and the good news is that he doesn't want anything to do with you, he's just looking for rats. (rats? I have rats?!) If you shuffle your feet when you walk in the grass, he'll go the other way." So, I zig zag for gators, stomp for lizards and shuffle for snakes and run from the geese ? What if I do the wrong thing? I still don't know all the steps to the Electric Slide.

Anyway, she just sat on my sofa and smiled the whole time she was telling me this and finally I screamed, "JOAN! I HAVE RATS AND BLACK SNAKES AND ALLIGATORS!" I guess she didn't know Joan was upstairs, because she backed out of the house and never came back. I was sort of hoping we could have lunch some day so she could teach me some more survival moves, but she left so quickly she forgot to leave her address or phone number.

rats.