24 hours a day, for the past two weeks, I’ve been surrounded by plant people. Tree guys, garden ladies, and even my urban, shiny-jeep-driving sister had plant needs this week. One evening, I spent a happy hour with a dozen plant geeks wandering through a greenhouse, caressing the basset hound ear-like leaves of rare Antheriums. It’s a wonderful time of the year.
Someone is bound to break the spell. An intruder. It could have been someone like the tax lady who shows up with piles of boring papers and requires me to go inside. Or the dentist who calls to say he has a cancellation and also requires me to go inside.
My wonderful week of plant people wasn’t disrupted by tax nor teeth. The intrusion was exciting as Santa on the roof. Y’all know how gardeners change words to the Santa poem right?
We gardeners were on our knees, weeding our beds;
While visions of Chicksaw-plums danced in our heads;
And Momma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled into our bog, a new Venus Fly Trap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Three herpetologists arrived in a van…….
Y’all may not know but I’ve worked as a gardener in Riverbanks & Zoo Atlanta. The plant people in zoos get to go all over the parks and meet all the different kinds of animal people. We’d get calls like this: “The big mammal people need a tree tall enough the giraffe can’t eat it.” Or, “Small mammal people need a small tree. I can be dead already. It’s for the sloth.” The vet people call to discuss the possible toxicity of weeds in the ruddy duck pond.
Of all the cliques, reptile people are hands down the most interesting and chill. How could they not be? They have an entire room in their house filled with boxes, filled with cold-blooded animals that don’t want anything but a mouse to strangle or a warm leg to lay under. Reptile people don’t need snuggles and they do not go buy these ‘pets’ at the mall. No, they plan 39-hour road trips, timed to breeding season, mapped out by plant and rock type and they stumble around, turning over logs till they find their new friend.
So on this warm spring day on the farm, after I’d been with plant people all day, digging bulbs, shifting pots, taking petunia cuttings, and discussing plants, when a van of herpetologists, pulled up, I was thrilled. New blood. A diversion.
Typical, these reptile people, didn’t wander to the pretty flowers. They didn’t stop to pet the dog. They saw black muck, dirty water with duckweed floating and they stomped right into our bog. The mass of distinctive leaves of water hemlock, one of the most poisonous plants in the US, didn’t even stimulate conversation as it would have with plant people. The unusually early flowering lavender water hyacinth didn’t bring up the noxious weed conversation that my kind love to provoke. Not one word about why the redbud flowers are called red bud when they are obviously pink.
Nope, they had their eye on the prize that lay hidden below and they slid right into what used to be our fish pond. We’d invited them. Something had been eating the fish. For two years, no fish. Tom, who is part fish person, had been discouraged. None of us, very few plant people would wade in, risking losing a toe to what we knew had taken up residence in the bottom; a snapping turtle. But lanky Sean jumped into the muck and started poking around with a stick and right away, as if it recognized a brother, that turtle crawled up on Sean’s rubber boot. Splash, Sean jammed his white arms into the black muck and came up with a snapping turtle. One-handed.
Within three minutes of shutting off the van, he passed a slimy snapping turtle to Amanda. Who admired it. Who, when I said that the turtle looked mean, grimaced. A protective spirit, she was already bonding, and looking closely, she said, “I think he has a hurt eye.” Within ten minutes of the reptile people interrupting the plant people talk, Amanda taught me more about their new friend than I’ve ever known, though he’d lived down there right by my potting bench, right in our little fish pond, for years. He was the quiet, hermit sort of neighbor but when his friends showed up, he greeted them warmly.
These reptile people knew of a big pond where a small snapping turtle would be happy so they put him in a box in the van. But like all good nature lovers, they looked around and said, ‘Can we see your garden?” We walked and talked. Through Momma’s garden and through my plant collection. Take my advice, next time a stranger knocks on your door, pray it’s a reptile person.
(Play the video above to see what they caught and what we learned. Thanks to the Savanah River Ecology Lab for their outreach. Here is their list and pics of the 20+ kinds of turtles we have around here.
And thanks for indulging me, I’m trying to figure out how to use video here. If you like farm work day stories like this, check out my book…….
If you enjoy these little stories, please comment, or share on social media. One day, I think we’ll add an audio section — would Jenks reading put y’all to sleep?
Reptile People Calling