We have been having cooler nights here in North Carolina and it feels great. Morning air in the garden has a crispness to it. Even cleaning the chicken coop was fun, getting the beds ready to plant garlic. Maybe the spinach will germinate now. I have planted the winter greens twice now with very poor sprouting. Almost stepped on a big black snake in the garden. Finally, I have been wishing for one for so long now. I have brown field rats in my garden and though they are very cute and gerbil like they eat the seeds and the seedlings and really frustrate me. The are smart little critters and hard to trap. I got them I think because I put a thick mulch of oat straw on my beds last year and they came for the oats and multiplied. when the oats ran out they ate everything else. From what I have read they are a big problem in grain fields in the south and you can also get them around your bird feeders.Sooo I started wishing for black snakes the perfect solution to brown rats or at least I hope so. The snake was large and a dull black, looked like tire rubber so I named him/her Goodyear, now I am starting to think about a black snake lino print. I have never cared much for snakes but I am trying to overcome that and adapt, that is as long as Goodyear does not develope a taste for chicken eggs.