It's Halloween....share your scary gardening stories and creature pics
We all know that gardening in Florida can be terrifying....horrible heat and humidity, torrential rains followed by periods of drought, hurricanes and tornadoes and lightning. And, on top of all that, we have all kinds of creepy, crawly, slithery, flighty creatures in our gardens.
Please share some stories and pics about these creatures, large or small.
I live out in the boondocks.... in the sandhills southwest of Williston, heading towards the Gulf. Probably my scariest encounter was a rabid coyote that decided that it was going to hang out in my backyard a few years ago. At first, I thought that it was just used to people and was just resting. Then, it started having seizures and making weird noises, foaming at the mouth and having trouble walking. I tried finding someone at animal control but on a Saturday, the whole county seems to shut down. I told my husband to keep Larry and Lucy (my Bostons) in the house and get his gun. When we went back out with the gun, it had disappeared. I got in the car and drove the roads with no luck. Called all the neighbors to put them on the lookout and called the sheriff.
Some of my favorite creatures are the gopher tortoises who dig their tunnels on my property which in turn provides shelter for many other visitors such as snakes including eastern indigo, coachwhip, black racer, hognose, corn and pygmy rattlesnake (this one I don't like). Other cool creatures include Sherman's fox squirrels, burrowing and great horned owls, a pair of bald eagles that made an appearance and sat in one of my longleaf pines and pileated (including a male who sat on my car every day for 2 weeks swooning over the woodpecker in the mirror), red-bellied, red-headed, hairy, downy and red-cockaded woodpeckers. Of course there are many varieties of songbirds, the lizards, newts, salamanders and the biggest spiders you'll ever see.
Here's a few pics taken over the past couple of years.
Rhonda
Here's the male pileated woodpecker
Tommy the gopher tortoise - out and about and heading home
Comments (10)
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
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Comments (43)OK - this is getting really creepy - like the Twighlight Zone. Yesterday my DH filled the yellow jacket's hole with gravel, and then I dumped a lot of dirt on top of the gravel, so the plants in that bed would not take offense. Today I was working nearby in the garden, and happened to look over towards where the hole used to be. It was back! No sign of the gravel, or of the dirt - just the hole even bigger than it was in the first place! I went running in and told him the yellow jackets had come back and emptied it out. He came out and said no, it was some sort of digging creature (take your pick - raccoons, skunks, squirrels...). He went and got a lot more gravel, and a heavy metal digging thing, and poured the gravel in and tamped it down, repeat several times. He says that even our digging critters will not be able to dig it up. I sprayed it with "critter go away" spray. I believe him intellectually, but a small part of me thinks that the yellow jackets have magic, and will keep coming back....... Jackie...See More
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7 years agoRhonda
7 years agoUser
7 years ago
suncoastflowers
7 years agoThese are from last year but check these guys out. It's a fungus. I found it when I was walking my dog in our yard a few days after Halloween last year.
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7 years agoRhonda
7 years agoRhonda
7 years agoRhonda
7 years ago
marcia_m