This month’s inspiration for our newest colors comes from self- proclaimed “nature nerd” Julia Gregory. Her picture of a Texas Coral Snake caught our eye with its bright yellow next to the dark black and rusty red. Julia works for the Texas Parks and Wildlife as a web content coordinator. She said she found this little fellow on her front porch in Bastrop, Texas. According to Julia, this beauty is a venomous snake, a member of the cobra family, but very shy and non-aggressive. This type of snake is relatively small as snakes go in Texas. After carefully picking up the snake, by using a pair of BBQ thongs, she took it to work to show her other naturalist colleagues. She then released it into the brush pile you see in the photo. Julia gave us very helpful information about distinguishing this coral snake from similar non-venomous milk and king snakes:

Red on black, venom lack (or friend to Jack)

Red on yellow, kills a fellow.

Midnight. Sunshine. Rust

I think that if I had the occasion to cross paths with a snake, I probably would not take enough time to ponder the venomous nature of the creature with a snappy rhyme. I would do that from the privacy and safety of my own critter-free home looking at the hurriedly snapped blurry photo of said snake that I took while screaming like a coward. But that’s just me.

 From the information that Julia sent us she sounds like a real renaissance women. Not only is she a knitter and friend to all things that are creepy and crawly, she is currently learning to make her own wine! If you would like to know more about Julia she provided this link to her About.me page http://about.me/juliagregory. She sounds like a fun person to get to know. Thank you Julia for the inspiration and educating us about one of God’s creatures.

As indicated in previous blogs if you would like to submit a photo to help inspire our next group of yarns, please send us a copy (mailto:tumbleweedyarn@hotmail.com). If your photograph is chosen we will send you a skein of our yarn in appreciation.

Hoping to inspire and ignite your imagination,

Diana and Kitman