Our 11 babies

The two pet brown snakes were indeed mating and not fighting three months ago. Elizabeth was skeptical, but Matt kept the faith that babies were gonna arrive. And indeed, we became the godparents to 11 bouncing, slithering snakelets. They have now been released to eat slugs and worms in the garden.

Caesar, Chantarelles, and Oysters

After 13 inches of rain, Caesar's mushroom, oysters, and chantarelles were a couple of the edibles that popped up. Yum!

Rapidan and Rappahannock

We had a great trip on the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers on Sunday and Monday. After we let everyone get ahead of us at the put-in, the only other person we saw was a biologist taking water samples. Fredericksburg owns all of the land along the river, it was very scenic and unbuilt -- just a few houses up on hills poking through the trees.

Covering only 14 miles in 1 1/2 days left plenty of time for swimming, watching wildlife, picking blackberries, and taking naps.


We saw muskrats

and a baby beaver


lots of herons


lots of dragonflies


and lots of bald eagles, though it's possible (likely?) that we actually saw just a couple of bald eagles over and over again.


After numerous fights about whether we were, in fact, about to die in the class 2 rapids, it was easy to agree on this campsite...that's our tent on the left.

The Artsy Fartsy Garden

The garden is so big it's hard to take a good picture of it. So here are some pictures of small things that have delighted me in the garden this week, instead.