Consumer and consumed, reprise

Snake vs. toad: Round II

A few days ago Ian and I were out walking Zeph in the jungle (hey, we've spend the last umpteen years in southern Alberta -- it looks like the jungle here!) when I happened to spot, at the side of the path, the "snake-eating-toad" event repeating itself.

"Ack!!" I said (it was all I could muster at the time).

Ian, however, sprang into action, pinning the snake gently on the back of its neck with his walking stick (do snakes have necks?). It promptly disgorged the toad, who was not as far gone as the first one we saw, and slithered indignantly, or maybe resignedly -- how do I know -- into the underbrush. Ian picked up the toad and deposited it about 50 yards along the path under a bush beside a stream. We looked carefully at the toad but it gave no sign that it was grateful, or even very much aware of our existance.

All we could do was leave it to its own devices, which looked pretty limited, even for a toad.

That evening, we found out why the toad was less than lively. From Wikepedia:

"Garters were long thought to be nonvenomous, but recent discoveries have revealed that they do in fact produce a mild neurotoxic venom...The mild poison is spread into wounds through a chewing action."

So the poor toad probably couldn't move even if all his toady neurons were screaming: "Red alert! Red alert! Being picked up by giant monster and moved from my territory!!!!"

Well hey toad. It's better than being eaten alive.

I checked the next day to see whether the toad was still sitting under the bush beside the stream. It wasn't. Maybe the snake got it after all.

I prefer to think it will go on to become the largest, oldest toad in the jungle. The King of Toads.

2005-2008(c) Pumushi/copyright all rights reserved

First day of Autumn

Ohmygosh! There's only 94 minutes of summer left!! Surely there's something summery I should be doing with that time! Instead I've been trying to get my head around what is meant by a Communications Plan. Should be pretty straightforward , right?

But ..... I work for the government. How's this for convoluted? Under "Sequencing" (I'm not even sure I know what that means):

Indicate any need to pre-position the issue with target audiences or to seek third-party views to build support before and/or after any announcement.

It goes on and on....

And I find my attention wandering alarmingly. If I were out with Zephyr and my attention wandered like that it would probably take me over a cliff.

In all fairness, this stuff is bettter written today than it used to be. Look at this, taken directly from our 40-year-old author guide:

The consistent use of the active voice wherever possible makes for better and clearer writing.

Um, wouldn't it be better to use the active voice there?

Ah, easy to criticize. And meanwhile the last minutes of summer are ticking away.

The consumer and the consumed

About a week ago, Ian and I pulled into our driveway, opened the garage door, and were faced with a snake swallowing a toad in our parking place. Why the snake was in the garage I have no idea. Our first instinct was to try to save the toad, but when we looked around, there was a fair bit of blood on the garage floor, and the toad was at this point at least halfway consumed, so we came to the unwelcome conclusion that we couldn't help.

And anyway, what did help mean? The snake was just being a snake and having a meal. The toad was just unlucky.

It was, however, a nasty glimpse into what happens all the time in "Nature", that place the starry eyed environmentalists like to idealize and hold us all responsible for. It wasn't cuddly, or cute, or controllable. It was horrible. But then again, maybe it wasn't as horrible for the toad as I imagine. I hope not.

The thing that keeps coming back to me is the look in the eyes of the snake and the toad: the toad was being consumed by the snake from the back to the front, and the look in the toad's eyes held no more expression than that of the snake.

That was perhaps the worst thing of all for me.

Country living....