{"id":264,"date":"2006-04-13T20:24:18","date_gmt":"2006-04-13T20:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newagrarian.com\/wp\/?p=264"},"modified":"2006-04-13T20:24:18","modified_gmt":"2006-04-13T20:24:18","slug":"howdy-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/2006\/04\/13\/howdy-neighbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Howdy, neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This gal has taken up residence in my workshop:<\/p>\n<p><img title=\"black rat snake\" alt=\"black rat snake\" src=\"\/dw\/wp-content\/images\/ratsnake.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Or guy. I asked, but she wasn&#8217;t talking.<\/p>\n<p>When I cleaned out the shed Monday after leaving it fallow for a year and a half \u2014 with a job and a kid and a novel I&#8217;ve had no time for woodworking, can you imagine? \u2014 I found eight million mouse turds but no mice. Yeah, I counted. They were everywhere, along with grass seed from a chewed-up bag. Evidence of several mice, but they were gone.<\/p>\n<p>Then Tuesday morning my daughter and I went outside and found a five-foot black rat snake hanging from the tool rack, looking at us. She dropped off and hid in the corner and I thought we had scared her off, but the next afternoon she was back, hanging around the rafters. So now I know what happened to the mice.<\/p>\n<p>Black rat snakes aren&#8217;t dangerous \u2014 they&#8217;ll strike if cornered but they&#8217;re constrictors, so their bite isn&#8217;t serious, and I think we can leave each other alone. (She flicked her tongue at the flash, but I don&#8217;t blame her. I don&#8217;t like getting my picture taken, either.) Meanwhile, I no longer have to worry about mice in the workshop. And the kid thinks she&#8217;s the coolest thing <em>ever<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Yep, it&#8217;s wild kingdom out here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This gal has taken up residence in my workshop: Or guy. I asked, but she wasn&#8217;t talking. When I cleaned out the shed Monday after leaving it fallow for a year and a half \u2014 with a job and a kid and a novel I&#8217;ve had no time for woodworking, can you imagine? \u2014 I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[17],"tags":[312,400],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8I1ci-4g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}