This is the time of year when smart people are very careful as they wander through East Coast woods -- which are well-stocked with ticks, mosquitoes and poisonous snakes.
Smarter people just stay out of the woods altogether, I suppose.
But not being very smart, I went wandering on Memorial Day, sweeping the swampy ground before me with my well-worn walking stick to give myself fair warning if a grouchy cottonmouth might be napping nearby.
I saw no snakes. I never do. It's very odd, for surely they are there, somewhere, watching the woodland through serpentine eyes. But I did photog this awesome little spider on a berry bush. (Not shown are the hordes of mosquitoes that siphoned my vital fluids while I attempted to get this shot. Atheists get one point against God for the existence of mosquitoes.)
