Our Wild North

We'd usually head down to the pond after our morning chores to catch a closer glimpse of these painted turtles. A lot of the time we'd hear rustling in the leaves as we approached the pond, and then see ripples in the water, so we started trying to sneak up on them. One day I hopped the electric fence and stood on a rock on the edge of the pond to get a better view and realised that all that rustling we'd heard wasn't turtles, it was water snakes.

The noise I made upon that discovery was probably enough to scare off any coyotes in the surrounding area. 

Over the next few days my dislike for water snakes turned into some sort of weird obsession. I'd go to the pond looking for them, and talk myself into getting closer and closer to them. One you noticed one, you noticed a whole load more. The place was crawling with them. 

I'd done a bit of research on them and read that they're very curious, which was confirmed one day when a small one slithered up to me to investigate. I watched it for a while, but then alarms started ringing in my head and I swiftly vacated the area. Absolute nope.