My weary world traveler returned mid-day yesterday, about an hour before I headed up to take my final exam. He had spent the prior week back in South Carolina, to reassemble and paint (with all rhino liner type paint) his Jeep and retrieve the last of our belongings that had been stored at Bonfire Gardens, which were sold as of yesterday. When we ran out of space in our crazy animal truck this summer, we abandoned a large collection of plants and stuff to Bonfire Gardens, with the assumption that they would be there for several more years, and all would continue to chug along just as it has for four years. Things change, and old assumptions fall by the wayside. So now we have things back in our possession, like our rototiller and lawn mower and most of the plants we bequeathed our friends. Mr S-P was bringing in the plants from the truck right as it started with the chilly rain yesterday, and he made a startling discovery. He did not travel here alone.
He picked up a large philodendron, and his stowaway passenger leapt from its leaves and hit the pavement. It tried to run into the street, and then turned tail and hid under the truck. It was captured and brought inside clutched in the man's cupped hands. A tiny anole lizard made the harrowing journey across the country, hiding tucked away in the philodendron at all the hotel stops overnight. It's a good thing it never got too cold along the way. I ran and emptied out one of the big plastic storage bins that we never emptied of canned food when we moved here, and we dumped the lizard and a smallish plant inside, and locked the lid. The bin had at least 8 gallons of space inside, so we weren't too worried about the little thing suffocating. We were more concerned about what to do to keep it alive until we had a more permanent setup.
Today I went and got my daughter's unused large fishtank, and then I went by the pet stores (2) to get a metal screen for the top, a heat lamp, some moss, and a temperature gauge. The Mr had already gone out for live mealworms. Gosh, I'm so glad to have those in my house. Jackie has discovered the lizard, and gotten very excited that her favorite snack food is now available west of the Mississippi. She will be very disappointed when she learns she's not going to get to eat it.
I'm leaning towards believing that it is a female lizard, because I have seen no sign of the big pink neck flap that males have. Thus we have Accidental Agnes the Adventurous Anole Lizard. The nature park is growing again.
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