Sweet corn field, typical of rural central Illinois. This family sells their corn at the side of the road, with the only advertising being one sign out front. I purchased a dozen on Friday and they are already in the freezer.

An opening Gloriosa Daisy (to be viewed while humming "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning"). ;-)

Madeira Island Geranium

Hummingbird Moth and Bee balm

Karen, I love it when you post pictures of your colorful home town. I'd like to visit it sometime.

Spiderwort.

Mr. Bitey on our deck this morning.

Thanks Mare! If you do I'll take you of a walking tour of downtown, where all the colourful houses are.

Karen, I doubt if we would be able to do a "walking" tour of all the wonderful looking places I'd like to see in you area. You've posted a lot of wonderful pictures!!

Oh Mr. Bitey, you just do your job biting rodents and we'll let you stay! He does look scary.

I wonder if they make a snake muzzle?

I wonder who would like to put it on ?

LOL nanny.

I enjoy all the pictures.

Bob, what kind of snake is Mr. Bitey? I think you told us before, but my CRS is working tonight. LOL He is pretty as snakes go, but not something I'd want around my property. I don't mind the little green grass snakes or garter snakes, but that is where I draw the limit on liking snakes.

That snake is a little 'lumpy' like he has swallowed a bunch of eggs.

I agree that Mr Bitey is oddly lumpy... How big is he and what did he swallow to make him look that way?!

Up for Bob to answer.

Mr Bitey is a Black Ratsnake. He's about 4 feet long. I've seen him a number of time around my house and garage, and have got quite close to take pictures of him. Which is why I think I must have stepped on him when he bit me.
I'm actually glad to see that he's Ok after being stepped on.

In this picture you can see that he is zig-zaggy (which I think he does when he's scared and trying to avoid detection) the way the light reflected off of his scales makes the zig-zags look like lumps.

Hmmm. My photo hosting site seems to be down.

Edited to upload image to GardenWeb

This post was edited by bob_cville on Sun, Jul 13, 14 at 21:16

LOL, nanny! Bumping this up to see if Bob's picture will appear.

Thanks Bob. Please don't step on him again.

Actually, we had a snake similar to that one (in the Sierra foothills), I thought it was a King snake. My dog used to bark at him as he made his yearly trek thru the old flume to a pond below us. Very cool guy, glad he is still healthy.And, I am glad that my early warning signal (dog) let me know when friend snake was about.

Later the same day as seeing "Mr. Bitey" on the deck I saw another snake in the bushes outside. Although this guy was much smaller, only about 18" long and 1/2" in diameter.