HAPPY BASTILLE DAY!

Since we missed a 4th of July post, here is one that is equally filled with red-white & blue (but in reverse order).... besides, 4, 14th; USA, France... what's the difference, right?

Well, we did have a busy 4th of July, complete with a 4 mile race (Marc finished 2nd; and Shuwen placed 3rd in her age group), and our housewarming party (close to 60 people showed up!) which went from 4pm- 1am! We were having to much fun we forgot to take any photos... whoops! We got to meet a number of our neighbors, and catch up with some friends we hadn't seen in a while with us being consumed by projects around the new house.

We also had a lovely visit from Lara & Mansureh who came down from DC to spend the weekend with us and helped with the party prep work & cleanup. Lara's "not-you-mama's-hummus" was particularly popular with the crowds, as were the chicken, shrimp and tuna kebabs. They didn't even complain about me putting them to work -- I'm such a terrible host!

We've also had a few recent adventures around our house involving a squirrel, a frog & a snake (luckily all in seperate incidences!)

Squirrels are a real menace here. They dig around our plant pots outside, run out in the middle of the road causing near traffic accidents, and eat the birdfeed meant for the much prettier and likeable cardinals, Carolina wrens, flickers, warblers and woodpeckers. I finally got around to picking up a bag of birdfeed 2 weeks ago and filled one of the birdfeeders the previous owners left staked out on the front yard. I noticed that birds were starting to go there, but the feed seemed to be disappearing pretty quickly. Last Monday, while Ben (our neighbor) and I were chatting in the backyard, we noticed that a squirrel was in or behind the feeder, so we investigated. Indeed, this fella had chewed out an opening, squeezed himself in and gorged himself on the seeds. He was scratching and panicking in there, apparently unable to get out (probably got too fat!) Ben unscrewed the top and let him out. But the squirrel did not leave without kicking up a fuss! As he ran up a pine tree, he was screaching up a storm, apparently cursing us out for trapping him! Sheesh...what an attitude!

Our froggie story however is much less comical and actually very tragic and somewhat traumatic for me [this is a warning to those of you who are easily squimish]. Marc & I like frogs.... they are really beautiful and amazing creatures (and they help with bug control) and we had seen a few here and there around our house these past few months. During our housewarming party, sometime between 11pm and midnight, I exited the kitchen through the back door and stepped on something slippery, which instantly hopped off to the side. I quickly realized it was a frog. Since it was dark, I was unable to tell if I hurt it, but I noticed a glowing spot coming from its back... Marc & I and our neighbors who were there (Ben & Corinne) looked at it (in the dark) and we decided it was a firefly that it must have just eaten. We all were amazed that we were able to actually see the glow, and Ben picked up the frog and let it go out into the backyard away from human traffic. Fast forward to the next morning, while I'm pouring the melted ice from our keg bucket into our rain barrel. I open the lid to the rain barrel and there is our little green friend... except he's not so green. 1/3 of his green outer skin had been scraped off and he had an 3/4 inch cut on his right side with part of his organs coming out. It was a pretty bad injury, and then it dawned on me what had happened. When I had stepped on him the previous night, I did all that damage and the only reason we saw the glow of the firefly was because part of his skin had been scrapped off. I felt terrible, and reported this to Marc, who said he thought the best thing might be put an end to the frog's pain and suffering. I knew this was probably right, but couldn't get over the prospect of killing the poor fella whom I had did this to. Marc ended up doing the deed in a corner of our backyard with the sharp edge of a shovel. He report that it was quick and instant and gave the froggie a proper burial. I actually cried a little about this and still feel bad about it all.... this blog is a bit of therapy for me. I haven't seen any frogs around our house since :(

Our black rat snake story luckily did not end so tragically and was a bit of a redemption opportunity for us, I think. This past Saturday we found a ~3 ft long black rat snake tangled up in the deer netting we had put around our veggie garden. He was REALLY tangled up and at first it looked pretty bad (possible cuts beyond just the scales), and we were pretty worried. Our neighbors are post-docs in Ecology at Duke (Ben) amd immunology at UNC (Corinne) and so are good sciency-types who enjoy animal adventures like this! So Marc & I recruited their help. Ben put on a pair of work gloves, I had a small pair of nail scissors and we set of to work. Ben held the snake while I worked on surgically removing him from the netting. The snake was clearly rather distressed and bit Ben a few times (thick work gloves are important!), but within 5 mins we were done. Ben fully inspected the snake, determined that any injury was all superficial and won't be a problem once the skin was shed, and we let it go. The snake quickly slithered across the grass and up a crape myrtle tree, happy to be free and probably quite hungry.... I hope it hunted down a squirrel.

~ Shuwen