Summer Seasonal Field Trip for Rubber Snakes…

This year’s Summer Seasonal class had the usual impromptu and totally off-the-wall field trip, as is becoming familiar to frequent students. The memorable one from this session was a trip to the dollar store to buy rubber snakes… for scaring away birds. Which is sad, I as I quite enjoy birds. What I don’t enjoy is replacing moss they’ve destroyed and putting on more fertilizer pellets where they’ve been flipped out in the excited search for insects.

It started as something of a joke, really. What we found at the store were snakes for kids, that when put in water swelled to 60% their size because it was not really rubber but some scary sticky gluey stuff that you’d never allow anywhere near a kid.

Oddly enough our joke worked. We’ve not had a bird attack since, although it does keep me active in the mornings moving snakes around so birds don’t wise up. Well, they might eventually, but I’m happy enough to have a few weeks respite.

What the others bought at the dollar store is not for publication-

Evidence we really WERE at the Dollar Store and actually DID buy rubber snakes there. John Conn and Linda Shotwell pose with their purchases-

Morning chat session with handouts, tea, and music before getting the hands dirty

This was my day to be taught in the bonsai studio… that a smart phone had a bubble level was in itself new, but when I put a student on the task of making a plumb bob for a new inclination on a juniper, I NEVER would have thought of this!