Baby was up and at it the other day. She almost seemed to be posing for me. She’d eaten a rat a few days earlier, and the sluggishness from winter had all but worn off.
Do you ever look at your animals and wonder what’s going on inside their heads? I do, especially with our dogs. Usually I think they’re either blissed-out happy or totally miserable. It’s almost always the former, but every so often, like when they’re covered in mud or have just rolled in something disgusting and it’s damp outside and I won’t let them in — then they’re miserable.
But with a snake, it’s not the same. You don’t look at a snake and say to it in a squeaky voice, “Hi, little Baby, are you happy I gave you that rat?” Most of the times I look at her, I wonder if she’s awake. Sometimes I even touch her skin to make sure she’s alive. On a very rare occasion, she hisses at me. She shakes her tail violently as if she were a rattlesnake, which, apparently, is one of the ways bullsnakes protect themselves.
What I’m trying to say is, I don’t normally anthropomorphize my snake. Remember the turkeys and the post I did where I imagined what they were thinking as they stared at us through the windows? Later I pretended they were The Amazing Turkeys Wallenda, and another time I put words to what they were thinking as they greeted me coming up the drive. I loved making fun of them.
But our pet bullsnake is the one animal I’ve taken at face value. That is, until today.
Today I looked at the photos I took of Baby on that day she was so active, and there it was, calling out to me. Not all of them, but one here, another there:
Can ya scratch my chin, right there, under my right fang.
Are you my mom????
Peekaboo. I see you.
I don’t want to go there. Baby has dignity. Not that turkeys don’t, but Baby’s a special case. She defies being made into a goofball.
I’m not sure what to do about it. The silly side of me wants to break loose. Ah, what will Baby care? She’s a snake. She has no feelings.
The other side, though, stares into those steely eyes and realizes that I’m the only one who will look the fool if I dare try to penetrate her inner snake.
ybonesy, so great to see Baby front and center again. Your photographs of her are so detailed. I love the middle top and middle 2nd row ones. And in the top right, the eye and scales look so blue. Are the eyes blue or is that the reflection of the light off the sky?
I wonder what she is thinking. Love the ending. 8) I got my hair cut tonight by a new woman. My usual hairdresser wasn’t there. Anyway, she asked if I had pets. I told her about Mr. Stripeypants, Kiev, and Chaco. Then I returned the question.
She said, “No, I’ve got pet rats.”
“Pet rats!” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “I love them. You’d think they would run away when I take them outside. But they just hang there close to me.”
She said one’s kind of pinkish white. The other..I forget. I got distracted with the scissors close to my ear. 8)
BTW, I often wonder what our cats are thinking. Is there anyway to really tell?
Okay, back to packing. Thanks for posting tonight.
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Ybonesy! Of course snakes have feelings! They’re just more instinctive and less expressive than our socialized, bark- or mew-enabled mammalian friends. Anthropomorphize away!
It’s great to see her up and about! (I worried about her a bit over the winter.) And the photos are awesome! One of them — the scale-pattern close-up — is going into my list of “things I may need to look at when I’m drawing stuff” file.
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I should introduce Baby to your hair stylist’s rats. They’d have a good time together. (Just kidding.)
Her eyes are almost like metal, and I do think they reflect back the colors around her. So, yes, it could have been the sky reflecting back. I have a feeling her eyes are this way because of her age. They seem to me to be a snake’s version of old, cloudy eyes.
Hey Sam, yeah, Baby made it through winter just fine. I was a bit worried, too. She’s so old. I had to write her previous owner to find out what temperature to keep the potting shed where Baby lives. There’s a heater and a swamp cooler in there. She got lots of southern exposure all winter, though, and the place stayed warm.
I think she’s getting ready to shed — the day she was so active she moved round and round in in a pattern, moving over her own body again and again. It was cool to watch. I keep wishing I had a video camera; it would have been perfect.
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BTW, Sam, I just read in the Wall Street Journal today an article titled “Chinese Scientists Think Snakes, Toads Might Have Known What Was Coming.” It talked about how 48 hours before the recent devastating earthquake in Cheng Du, the cobras in snake famrs stopped eating and were jumping in their cages. The article then goes on to site other instances of animals and reptiles behaving strangely in the days leading up to other natural disasters.
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ybonesy – the second and third photo are amazing. Baby seems to have a texture that reminds me of the scales on asparagus – the form of the scales seems so perfectly aligned in staggered rows – like a mathematical formula come to life. To think that the scales make it possible for her to have traction for movement is completely amazing. Who needs science fiction fantasies when so close to hand we have these life-forms that seem improbable. The steely cloudiness of her eyes adds to that stange emotionless regard – it is hard to imagine emotion coming from such a glance. Yet she looks approachable – and i bet at times she enjoys contact with you. G
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Second row, all the way right…she is definitely trying to communicate something with you…
it’s probably something to do with her food…
my cats constantly complain…”why are you giving me dry food when it canned…only canned I want!”
😉 H
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That’s what she’s thinking! You dirty rat, I’m sick of rats…I want Spam…I want a hamster or a guinea pig…anything but a stinkin’ rat…
BTW, our pug also likes canned food. I ran out recently and she protested by throwing up the dry.
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Baby is a beautiful snake, but I can see why you’d go back and forth about the idea of anthropomorphizing her. Snakes just don’t seem suited for that sort of thing.
Great pictures of her, Ybonesy. 🙂
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all right… you guys are bound and determined to make us non-intellectuals get out Merriam Webster for that “anthropomorphize” aren’t ya! 😉
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LOL. I put in a link on the word. And here’s a definition, good old Merriam:
“to attribute human form or personality to things not human”
Don’t feel bad. I had it spelled wrong until I saw Sam’s spelling. 8)
And isn’t it a fun word to say?
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that really is the cutest snake I ever saw…also, sorry for not acknowledging that SonyPepperoni the Pug is the cutest dog ever and I loved the poetry too…when I was Em’s age I wrote relentless poetry like “Here come the horses, the running running horses” – I so enjoyed her poems. thanks, that was fun to see.
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She was cute that day. She’s not usuall so adorable. She’s quite big and kind of scary, to tell the truth. You need to come see her in person some day.
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Excellent photos. Yes, it would be foolhardy to try to know the inner snake. Snakes really creep me out.
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ybonesy, I’m back from the writing retreat. Was wonderful. I feel tired but full. And right on track with my writing projects. More to come on that. Thanks for holding down the fort.
So Baby’s eyes are the color of metal? I’m not surprised at what they found in the article you mention – “Chinese Scientists Think Snakes, Toads Might Have Known What Was Coming.” I have often heard that, too. It prompts us to pay attention to what’s going on around us in nature.
If Baby sheds, take a photograph of the skin. I love the feel of shed snake skins. They are so soft. And it’s amazing to think about how the snake sloughs off what it old, and trades it for the brand new. They shed once a year, right?
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I used to enjoy watching a friend’s constrictor eat the rats he fed it. There was a grim reality to it — this is nature, the real world, baby.
I’ve noticed lately I don’t enjoy that stuff as much as I used to. I still love nature programs, but have somehow become more removed from the bloody aspects.
Nice to live in a world where our kiiling is done for us, I guess. Though I do still think everyone who eats meat should have to do their own slaughtering.
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ben, are you vegetarian? Or vegan? Liz’s nephew is vegan and when her family was visiting a few weeks ago, it was quite difficult to find places that did not include dairy, milk, or cheese in some of their dishes.
We finally landed on the New French Meadow for breakfast (Liz’s Mom actually remembered it from another trip) and it was great for him. The place if often packed for the quality of food, vegan, and vegetarian aspects.
I’m sure if I had to butcher my own meat, I’d stop eating it. But it’s true – we’ve become very removed from that process. And it makes it easier to still eat meat. I do love a good steak or barbecue.
I have never eaten snake meat. Though I hear it is lean like chicken and good cooked over a campfire. I don’t know though. Something about eating a snake. Maybe it’s the mythology. (No offense, Baby.)
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Hey, QM, welcome back! Glad to see you back on the blog.
Yes, Baby’s eyes are kind of like pewter. I think she even has a film on them that also sheds when she sheds her skin. I should look that up to be sure, though.
I will take a photo of the skin when she sheds it. I don’t know how often it happens, just that it seems to require a big meal that expands out her body. Something about the expansion of the body facilitates the releasing of the skin.
Ben, I’m wondering if you’ve read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The girls in middle school carpool were talking about yesterday; apparently, one of their teachers talks about it a lot. Jim has it, and some of author Michael Pollan’s (LINK) other books, including The Botany of Desire and In Defense of Food.
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QM, sorry to be so tardy in replying — this one slipped through the cracks. (Oh, and ok, I’ve been in&out of wordpress, too.)
I’m not vegetarian, but the Mrs. is. One thing I really appreciate about the SF bay area is the custom of posting the menu outside, usually by the front door, so we can see the options and she can see if there is anything for her.
Mostly, she has doped out a few places that have 1 or 2 favorites for her. And most places here do have at least 1 veg. entree, as they don’t want to exclude people.
Oddly, she is reluctant sometimes to ask the waiter. I have no hesitation, if some dish has ingredients she wants, about simply asking, “my wife would like some of the A and B, but she doesn’t want the C” or even mentioning some ingredients I know she likes and asking if they can come up with something for her. And once I get the ball rolling, she is practically ready to discuss food preparation.
They almost always are eager to please. It’s the rare exception where they won’t make veggie adjustments.
But no, we are big cheese fans and never had to deal with vegan issues. And knowing how big dairy is back in the landa lakes, with “dairyland” next door, too, I can imagine it would be quite a hunt.
Um, maybe “hunt” is not the best verb. Forage?
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Oh, ben, thanks for coming back to respond about the vegan/vegetarian situation with restaurants. Coming back to this post reminds me that I made that comment when Liz’s family was here last May for her graduation. That was so much fun!
I bet there are many mixed marriages of vegetarians and meat-eaters. It’s funny but during the times when I went vegetarian or macrobiotic, the person I was with usually did the same so we were eating a similar menu. It’s been a while since I cut out meat though (sometimes I do still think about giving it the ax).
I get maxed out on meat sometimes. Other times, my body really craves it and heavy proteins.
ybonesy, WONDERFUL photos of Baby! Hey, let us know how the new exchange student takes to Baby. Will you let her pet Baby’s skin? Snake skin is so soft. I once petted one at the Minnesota Zoo.
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Well, QM, I asked Monica (exchange student) about Baby. What do you think of her, I asked. Cool, Monica said. Would you ever touch her? Noooooo…. 8)
On the topic of mixed marriages, Jim and I are united on meat versus not. We eat chicken and pork fairly often but not much beef. But we have the gluten versus gluten-free thing going on. I still buy myself and the girls bread and flour tortillas, and we’ve managed to find GF options for many dishes: Fettucine Alfredo, pie crusts, cookies, and of course, many New Mexican dishes use corn not flour. But we’re still finding a balance.
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As an omnivore, it does give me a small advantage, which I try not to exploit. Case in point, there is a rave-review pizza place in Oakland called “Pizzaoilo” we finally visited, after meaning to for a while. Even in this economy, reservations needed and a line out the door shortly after they opened, at 5:30.
And it was very good thin crust pizzas — we got one for her, margarita, and a sausage and arugula (sp?) for me, plus a winter veggie antipasto. Hers came first, so I had a slice — and she’d be welcome to one of mine, but you can see how it is.
Still, I gave her most of the antipasto. All quite tasty.
At home, we share a lot of dishes, but we both like to cook so often go separate directions and share side dishes. I’m often intrigued by some of the things she brings home — although I don’t think I’ll ever cotton to beets. And I’m only up for the braised kale when she gives it a lot of olive oil and salt — then it’s quite tasty; like chips.
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QM, I remember the request you made a couple of years ago about taking a photograph of Baby’s skin if she sheds it. Well, she often sheds, but just this week was the first time that I’ve seen her shed the entire thing in almost one piece, head and eyes intact. Here is the photo:
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Cool photo, ybonesy! So when she sheds, does the skin turn inside out? Amazing that it’s all in one piece. Snake skins are so soft, too. You wouldn’t think that. Especially before they dry out.
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No, I don’t think the skin was inside-out, QM, but maybe because by the time I photographed it, it has dried and split in some places, it looked inside-out. Although, I’m not certain that it wasn’t so don’t take my word for it.
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Yeah, I can’t remember if I read that somewhere, that the skin turns inside out. Or made it up. 8) The idea of something shedding its skin — such good writing fodder.
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