Category: Interesting Information

The light these days has changed a lot. There are long shadows everywhere just a little after noon. The winter solstice is coming.

But, here’s Jose starting to tile in the afternoon. The aqua blue (two coats) are waterproofing layers, due to the concrete sitting right on clay–which is like cement when dry, but like soup when wet. Thus, the staining on the concrete.

The tile is done, but grouting will come the next day.

Done!

And my “outdoor room” is ready to go again.

I spend a lot of time in this space.

There was enough tile to do the little outside platform.

I am really happy with this decision and this outcome.

The hesitations I had about moving to South Carolina were primarily three: heat, snakes, and alligators.

I’ve gotten used to the heat, though I do live in air-conditioning, and I do miss the crisp cool air of Maine where windows can be often open for a lot of the year. Here in the tropics, humidity and moisture is an issue, and the AC does control it, but opening a window is not a good idea.

We see alligators in our ponds off and on. They seem to come and go via the underground water drainage system of culverts so common in this Low Country.

You can clearly see alligators should one venture into your…garden…which is highly unlikely in my neighborhood. Alligators do occupy some places and paths in parks and golf courses where ponds or wetlandsare involved.

Wetlands are all around my neighborhood, and I can tell you that I wouldn’t put one foot into those woods without donning boots and snake protectors on my lower legs. Not one foot. LOL. And I’m not especially snake phobic. I just honor the snakes’ privacy in their habitats.

We do have garter snakes here in the neighborhood. And they are WAY bigger than the garter snakes in my Maine garden. Here’s one in my back door neighbor’s garden. When we touched it with a rake, it COILED, which made both of us back off immediately until it got identified as “garter.” In this picture, one can see that the head is not wide and shaped like a triangle wedge, but we weren’t sure.

Here’s another one in another neighbor’s garden.

Garter snakes actually eat garden pests. I would go so far as to say they signal a healthy garden habitat. Or, one in the making. I rather think it has a cute little face, and it looks at one with curiosity, not malignancy.

We also have water snakes that eat things in the water. At least one showed up here on a road after a long dry spell where the creek from the wetland dried up. It eats aquatic creatures. It was dead in the road, and I don’t know if it was killed or run over by accident. And I’m sure, somewhere, there are the types of “black” snakes–rat snakes–that eat rodents. And I’m sure there are many other types of snakes here as well.

But this one! Which was found on a neighbor’s porch that backs up to the woods and wetland…

Our knowledgable neighborhood snake identifier said it was a Hognose Snake or a juvenile moccasin–and to leave both alone.

“Hognose” is used as a kind of a general term for snakes identified by an upturned nose. They are harmless and eat frogs. They are also more prone to being in woods and not wetlands. Some people have them as pets.

Eastern Hognose Snake

Moccasins DO like wetlands. A juvenile would have a green section at the end of its tail. In the neighbor’s picture, we can’t see the tail. They are seriously poisonous, but are not terribly aggressive unless backed into a place where they don’t feel safe. Or, stepped on.

Their close relative is the Copperhead–and you can see the green tail section of a juvenile in the picture below. They are very orange, not dark like a moccasin.

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources has good information on snakes and on moccasins and copperheads specifically at dnr.sc.gov. Or just search on SC and moccasins and copperheads.

The natural world is an amazing place, filled with wonders and dangers.

Debbie gave us a break most of yesterday afternoon and much of last night, so I went out to explore in the early afternoon, alongside many of my neighbors, many of whom were walking dogs that had been penned up inside for a long time. My back yard neighbor was really worried about the creek/bioswale running through our property rising up to a level that would come into her house. I wanted to see how all the drainage systems here were working–as this type of Low Country drainage is new to me.

There are two big ponds at the front entrance of this property–the fountains in them are decorative, but the ponds are there to capture rain water. The one on the left is very full–you can see that the drainage platform in the front of the picture is now covered with water. But the steep sides still have a ways to go before overflowing would occur.

**Note that these ponds are also tidal, so at high tide there is much more water. When I went out, it was low tide. ***Many of think that the bigger fish, otters, and alligators travel around via these drainage pipes/platforms and culverts.

Here is the entry pond on the right, and it lies adjacent to the wetland that lies between the property and the road outside the property. That road is much higher than the wetlands that line each side of it–so the road functions kind of like a levee. Drainage culverts run underneath the big road to channel water…elsewhere.

You can see that the wetland is full of water, which is how it functions. On the left is the culvert that runs under our entry road to the wetland on the other side of the entry road.

Out on the big road, there is a big culvert draining water from our property. This big culvert is the tail end of the creek/bioswale that runs through our property. There is a network of other smaller drains all along the road that channel water from the wetlands to the other side of the big road.

Our neighborhood has a LOT of depressions that are “dry” ponds until we have a storm. There are about six or seven of these depressions scattered about the property, and a few hold some amounts of water all the time. This one is by the mail kiosk is usually dry. Now it drains into the creek/bioswale on its far side.

Here is a little video of the creek/bioswale that is worrying my neighbor–from a point where it leaves the property. The head of the creek/bioswale is on the other side of the road where my house is located. You can see where the creek runs under that road.

And here is a video of the head of the creek/bioswale, which has water coming from the wetland that stretches across one side of our property.

Here’s the big back pond, and you can see it has very steep banks, and can take more water. The drainage platform is not covered back here.

***Note that all the ponds are treated by Mt. Pleasant environmental people. They install tiny fish that eat mosquito larvae.

Today we have gotten more rain, but much of Debbie is out to sea right now, where she may get bigger and more organized again. Who knows? The wind has picked up a bit as well, which may move her along up the coast.

In any case, we will not be done with Debby until Friday at the earliest.

Meanwhile, we are…dry inside our houses.

Look what was in my front yard when I came home from an errand yesterday. One of the Great White Egrets that are very common here. Note the short yellow bill, black legs, the long flexible neck, and the height.

S/he didn’t spook when I opened the window to get a better picture.

A quilty friend who came to visit told me that this bird, which was slowly walking around all the house gardens near me, was hunting for the little green anole lizards that also live here. A bit of research shows these birds (who are predominantly waders but who will come onto land for food) eat an array of critters, including “amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals, as well as invertebrates including crayfish, shrimp, dragonflies, and grasshoppers.”

Great Egret

Amphibians…that means the green tree/rain frogs that have grown over the year from being the size of a fingernail to being about four inches. They “perch” on our houses and poop everywhere, and the poop is sticky and hard to clean. BUT, they eat insects, so are a valuable part of a balanced garden environment.