Wonderful Fall Afternoon

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. I pulled my new table saw out of my car, cleaned it up and assembled most of it. Then told the boy we'd be going for a bike ride.

I think he saw me playing with the saw and thought he was off the hook. No dice, baby!

We parked at the Wakulla trailhead and headed south at a good clip. Z was struggling to keep up with me, so I introduced him to the concept of big gears. Once he got that, he took great joy in passing me and leaving me in the dust. We took turns passing each other in the dappled sun. Luckily for him, I was the one out in front when we came upon this lovely gentleman snake.

He was lying stretched out in a patch of sun on the pavement. I rode past him and stopped, waving ZBoy over to the other side of the trail so he wouldn't hit the snake. When he saw what I was trying to get him to avoid, he kind of freaked out. Seriously... this snake was no threat. He was relaxed, not even shaking his rattles. He just laid there looking at us. Z continued to refuse to ride past him to join me. Finally, after about five minutes of this noise, I think Snake had had enough so he slowly turned around and slithered off into the grass.

Which made the boy VERY happy.

Things tend to be in decline around here in the fall. The leaves drop from the trees, the grass goes brown, the flowers die back to get ready for Spring. But as I was putting our bikes away after we got home, I spotted this next to the gate...

The shrimp plants are having one last go before it gets cold.