The Wild Life and Times of a Botanical Geek

While mucking about in the yard today, I accidentally startled a tiny lizard that had been hanging out in the raised bed. He was something of a surprise, as I'm used to seeing the five-lined skink hanging about, and this little fellow was bright green with a reddish tail. He was downright ADORABLE, and I watched him for a good long time before he got tired of being stared at and made like a tiny reptilian Indiana Jones, leaping off the raised bed and scuttling off into the grass. I'm hoping he will be a Tiny Lizard Friend and come back. I'm sure we'll have plenty of bugs for him to eat soon enough.

On a side note, the garden's doing well so far. We've got carrots, beans, cucumbers, and corn coming up, in addition to the tomatoes and peppers we planted. I've also got some daikon radishes, beets, and onions planted, so I'm hoping those will come up soon. We'll see how many actually survive, considering the deer and rabbits' love for my vegetables. >_

As you may have heard, there's some snow heading our way in the south, if it's hasn't already arrived (here, it hasn't). The amount has been touted as anywhere from ten inches to just making life soggy for a while. Although as far as everyone is concerned, there's a veritable snowtastrophe upon us, whereby we're all gonna die horrible frosty deaths, either from straight freezing, or from skittering all to our deaths on the road.

To be honest, I've gotten used to hearing shrieks of how we're all gonna be buried up to our eyelashes in snow, only to have just a bit of rain in the end. People have a tendency to overreact here, considering we're all southern belles and gentlemen who are more accustomed to sweltering heat than feet of snow. If my barometer-like head is indicator, there's SOMETHING on the way, though what exactly what remains to be seen.

But anyway, overreaction. It happens a lot here. All the sidewalks are salted/rocked/kitty littered within an inch of their lives, and after all the salting, the roads are WHITE, despite the fact that we haven't gotten any snow yet. But it's not just the municipality going nuts. Your average person goes a little crazy here too, half-expecting we'll be buried until spring. I'm not entirely sure why, but whenever the forecast calls for snow, everyone immediately has to run out and buy eggs, milk, and bread. And primarily those three things. You'd half expect everyone gets a subconscious command to make french toast, or something.

I ended up being amongst the grocery goers today, since there were a few things I needed and weren't able to get yesterday. This ended up being an interesting study in anthropology. First off, the supermarket was PACKED. We're talking Christmas/Thanksgiving packed. Everybody was there grabbing things, mainly the aforementioned eggs/milk/bread combination. Heck, they were completely out of your standard dozen-eggs carton. However, I found it very interesting to see what else was popular. Some things made sense, like firewood and bottled water. In other cases, what was being bought defied reason a little, like the woman whose front cart was chock full of collard greens. And in other other cases, reason was defied initially, but then made sense once you thought about it.

( What else those crazy southerners were buying )

On a slight side note, I see now why oranges are so popular as a winter fruit, besides the fact that they ripen in the winter. It was really nice and warming to come in from a downright cold and dismal day, and see piles and piles of bright, happy oranges, like little pieces of sun. Mmm, oranges. <3

Thus endeth my anthropological adventure for today.

( On 'Turn Left' )

Also, a literal sign of the times: I noticed a sign at school touting an upcoming blood drive. The incentive they used to get people to come and donate: Free gas.