eastern milk snake...apparently

We went on our annual "fall walk" about a month ago. Every fall, we hike through a park - for the last couple years we have been walking through Donald Park in Mt Vernon. It has some beautiful trails and a combination of woods and prairie. This year we came across a couple snakes - one was a typical and harmless garter snake. The other, while tiny, was coiling up and trying to strike. It was also shaking the end of it's tail, although it was too small to have rattles, if it was a rattlesnake. It almost looks like a tiger rattlesnake, except they are native to Arizona and Wisconsin is probably a little cold. The park has riding trails, and I didn't want the snake to get stepped on by a horse, so we moved it off the trail. (With a very long stick, even baby rattlers are poisonous!) Click on the picture to see it a little bit larger. It really is a pretty little snake.

Come to find out, it is an eastern milk snake.....

A spooky Halloween

Daylight savings was a little late this year - so it was still light outside when Trick or Treating started. It was dark by the end of the alloted time period - the town of Mt Horeb set the Trick or Treat time from 5-7 PM.

We had about 350 "fun size" candy bars - and when it was all over, only about 15 to 20 pieces left! Then we left the "cauldron" of candy outside, and when I went out to get it about a half hour later - well, that candy was gone too! Someone tricked us!

The whole Halloween scene on the deck was very scary - a lot of the littler kids didn't want to walk up on the deck to get their candy. Ethan and Luke did their usual excellent jobs as grim reapers. This year, we added that big scary guy hanging over the candy cauldron. The weather was warm, and it was a lot of fun. So many people came! It's fun to hear the comments. One mom said her kids "have been waiting 364 days for this!"

We have already started planning for next year!