Gnats have made it nearly impossible for me to stand being outside at my potting bench for very long.

Yesterday I did the little bit of work I needed to do at it while trying not to breathe so the pesky little buggers wouldn’t go up my nose. I pretty much needed to close my eyes too, because they wouldn’t stay out of there either.

So today when the wind picked up and it looked like it was going to rain, I went outside to see if that helped get rid of the gnats. It did!

Much much nicer to work with a storm approaching and no gnats. It never did rain, just cooled off nicely.

When I went to check the mail later, at the gate I saw the rattlesnake. It was stretched out and heading across the driveway.

Badger stepped on it!

Badger never even noticed it until the snake coiled up and started rattling, AFTER he’d stepped on it. Then he backed away good and got a really sheepish look on his face. It never even struck at him, though.

Then Turbo came along and saw it and barked and barked it and stayed way clear.

It’s so amazing how instinctive the warning of a rattle must be.

I let him go. I wasn’t dressed for snake dancing anyway. Flip flops… I got close enough for good pics, but not so close he could reach me.

He never tried to bite us, just wanted us to let him go.