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Description
Hey so this is a bit of another novel, but it's really more for myself than anyone else.
If you read and/or comment, many thanks!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have seen a lot of things this year -- probably more in this year than i ever imagined i'd fine in a lifetime.
I've seen new insects and spiders as i do every year, i've seen owls in trees just yards away.
I've seen a mole run right in front of my feet in the dead of night on its way to a new hole in the ground, i've seen a snake on my back porch, and unfortunately saw it die in person.
I buried a snake this year, that being said.
I've seen my tree fall to pieces before my very eyes.
I've seen baby squirrels come to my mom for peanuts.
I've seen baby rabbits grow into adults, living under our shed as yet new babies appear.
I found the remains of a junco (small feeder bird) with feathers still stuck in its wing bones, and harvested them.
More impressively, i am almost certain that the bird was killed by a red shouldered hawk.
I've seen a pair of sparrows nest in our oriental grass before we cut it down, and even got to see the nest and eggs as i proved to my mom that a nest was there.
Then, when the brood had left, i revisited the nest to find a single egg that had never hatched.
I buried it near where i buried the remains of the junco.
Just today, while wondering if the lantana we freshly re-potted will ever come out of shock from the move, i saw a small, silver baby bird feather literally just fall from the sky.
Never have i gotten to see that, and it was awesome.
Yes, i collected it!
ALSO, today, i noticed a mockingbird is building a nest in our honeysuckle bush.
Guess our yard is just a haven for growth!
I've seen a lot, and i've buried a lot.
All of this amazing stuff has happened in my back yard, which is just breathtaking.
Who knew how active and full of movement every part of the world was?
But today, i saw something i never thought i'd get to see or interact with in a million years.
To tell you the truth, it's not as exciting as i'm building it up to be, but to me it was very personal and difficult to fathom.

I've had to help do a lot of yard work this year, much to my dismay and irritation, though every time we do yard work i find something new and crazy to talk about, even if it's just snail shells.
    We've cleared out two flower beds and replaced them with white marble river rock, as you can see mostly blurred out in the picture above.
But in this picture, we were working on this third flowerbed, which was supposed to be the easiest.
It's our last one, and we didn't manage to get finished (because i tried to lift a bag of rocks for my mom, and strained my hip so bad i thought i paralyzed myself and pain is still shooting all the way down my left leg.
I have an ice pack on my back as i type this), even though we really should've.
Ordinarily there would be no excuse, right?
Right.
Well in this process of clearing the flower beds and replacing the contents with rock, we dug up some dirt and bagged it, tossing it off to the side before laying the rock down.
So i hold the bag, mom shovels in some dirt.
Repeat until bag is full.
Perfectly normal.
So i look down into the dirt, and something catches my eye.
It's small, oval and round, and looks like a pretty rock.
This conversation ensues.

"Me: Hey, what's that stuff in here? *asked with innocent, cheerful curiosity*
Mom: What stuff?
Me: These white thingies in the dirt.
Mom: *getting more dirt* Is it food? *meaning little white specs in most soil to feed plants*
Me: No, it's kinda big, i think they're rocks!"

So i happily and innocently reach in and grab one of these "rocks," expecting a hard substance.
But when i touched it between two fingers, and lifted it, and it was in fact squishy, i SCREAMED and dropped it back into the bag and yelled "IT'S SQUISHY!"
Mom and i looked at each other, then back into the bag.
Before she even suggested it, i had a sinking feeling.
"You think it's eggs?"
I knew it was eggs -- reptile eggs.
Mom suggested snake eggs, and then suggested skink eggs.
Well...
We've had skinks live here for years and years, as long as i can remember.
No doubt, i can imagine there are generations of skinks that have lived here, but in all our time we've never disturbed enough of the area in which we've seen them to ever know where they nest.
That flower bed in the picture, before we removed the ground cover and began to dig it up, was a communal nesting site for the few large female skinks we've seen in our yard.
Even my mom loves the skinks, so obviously we weren't just going to let this go.
I handed her my phone and told her to look it up to double check and figure out what to do while i put on a pair of rubber gloves and began to dig out all of the eggs.
I believe there were at least ten, but i didn't exactly count.
This event was like something from one of my uncomfortable dreams, a stressful dream in which i am faced with a moral obstacle, and am unsure of what to do or how to overcome it.
As mom researched, just when she started to pull up information about wild skinks, i was hit by even more shock.
The lower half of a lifeless mother lizard hung out of the dirt from my carefully digging for eggs.
I was stunned at first, then began to slowly dig her up.
For a moment, she wouldn't move, and i feared we had injured her.
Turns out she was simply stunned, having probably been settling in for the night with her clutch before being unearthed and flipped into the sweltering interior of a black plastic bag, and then it took me a good minute or two to actually find her.
Had i not, i don't know if she would've got out, because she was very stunned, and didn't move even when i uncovered her tail and back legs.
When i uncovered her and she finally sat up, she turned and faced me, locking gazes with dark eyes.
She was confused, and probably just trying to take in fresh air again.
Above all, she was suddenly pitted in a moral conflict of her own; run from untrustworthy man and save her scales, or stay with her clutch and take the risk.
Slowly and, honestly a little dizzy seeming, she crawled over my lap and into the grass, and slinked away.
I wanted to catch her and bring her back, but we had to wait until we got all her eggs.
So i kept digging, carefully clawing through the dirt until i found every last one.
And believe me, i checked more than five times for long periods of time, so i'm fairly confident that i got every egg.
    In the picture, you can see a small area boxed in by brick, walling in mulch, dirt and pulled weeds.
Assuming that the eggs had been under a thin layer of soil with their mother, we covered them, and then i was told to go find the mother.
She hadn't gone far, as she was hiding just by the patio.
I had to chase her a bit (and she was big and gorgeous, by the way), but i did catch her.
She squirmed and wiggled and tried to get away, never once trying to bite (which blew my mind, because when i was a kid i actually did catch a skink just like her and it bit me [leaving a heart-shaped imprint on my knuckle {which i loved}]).
I took her back to the new nest we'd created (i hadn't gotten the mulch yet, but whatever).
I was going to put her down, but i wanted her to see her eggs and smell them and know where they were, so while holding her i quickly unearthed some, then gently set her down and backed away slowly.
She stayed beside them for about a solid minute, breathing hard, and no doubt smelling and seeing her clutch.
We waited for her next move.
That long piece of wood across the rock bed?
She slowly edged her way under it, and stayed there for the next hour and a half or more while we continued carefully working.
In that time, i actually said OUT LOUD, "watch, i bet there'll be another nest."
Yup.
Mom moved more dirt into a new bag, and spooked an even BIGGER, FATTER female away.
I looked down in the back, and there sat a single egg.
Why do i never ever listen to my instincts??
I dug and dug, but could not find any others.
I checked over and over again, but found none.
Online, i read that some wild skinks may lay between five and fifteen eggs in a clutch.
Knowing that, i'll admit it weighs on my conscious to think i may still be missing eggs, but i did my damn best to uncover and dig through everything, and every piece of dirt i could.
Having nowhere else to put it, i covered the lone egg up in a far corner of female 1's nest, hoping the scent of a different egg wouldn't throw her or cause problems.
Idk if female 2 will come back, or if she'll find it, but i will hold onto hope for as long as i can.
    After almost killing myself lifting that bag of rocks, i came in to ice my back (while literally starting to cry from shock over both the pain and the experience) when mom came in a few minutes later, and told me the first female had poked her head out, facing the new nest and wanting to go to it.
She said that once she noticed my mom, though, she hid again, but this is a sure fire sign that she will attend to her eggs.
The part that worries me, is if all the movement and handling will prove jarring for the eggs.
I didn't exactly take my time to inspect them, but none of them seemed damaged, collapsed or anything else.
They were full, soft, and healthy.
So my hopes are that female 1 will be able to do for them what they need, and that they'll hatch.
I prayed a lot then, and i'm praying a lot now.

Maybe it's ridiculous, to love everything in nature so much, but it occurred to me outside tonight that i'm not the only one.
I genuinely found myself wondering, "am i the only one in the world who loves every living thing so much?"
And forgive me, but then i remembered Steve Irwin, God rest his soul.
When i was a child, i watched so much Animal Planet, and The Crocodile Hunter was my favorite show.
Steve taught about loving all things in nature.
Even if something scared him, if something bit him, he never was angry with the animal, however big or small.
He preached love, and i think he's part of the reason why i get so upset when people say they "hate" an animal, because no creature deserves anything less than our love and respect, whether or not we are afraid of it, or have been hurt by it.
I've noticed in my life, when an animal hurts me, a part of me feels honored, or unable to truly be angry, because hasn't mankind honestly done enough to deserve being harmed by animals?
It was their world first.
If i'd had it my way, seeing those eggs tonight, i would've put everything back in the flower bed and never touched it again, just because i finally know where the years and years of skinks in our yard have been hatching their young.
I can't begin to explain the delight that overcomes me whenever i see one of those sneaky little lizards surfing all over the patio and in the flowerbeds.

Now that our flowerbeds are just rock, i fear it is less desirable for the skinks.
After this clutch, i'm sure mom will remove the makeshift nest and pave it over as well, which may very well mark the end of them breeding and living here.
The idea of that loss really saddens me, i've put up with a good bit of minor griefs this year and it's barely Summer!
I know it's just about insane to want to sacrifice control of your yard for your wildlife, but people tend to forget that animals were here first.
This is their world, too, and just because we have dominion doesn't mean we ought to feel entitled to say "it's all mine," because it's not.
We aren't the only ones who live here, but i'm sure if we continue being destructive it could very well end up that way in a late, miserable future (though i personally don't expect us to be here that long).
So...
What i'm trying to say is, it was a bizarre encounter, and one i never though i'd have.
It was like dreams meet nightmares, and as with my wilting, shocked lantana i am left to wonder if the eggs will survive.
To hold such small, fragile, squishy eggs and know that something unborn lives and breathes within it, waiting to be born, it'll haunt me if they don't make it.
The idea that we almost buried a family of small, innocent lizards is nauseating, because we all love them.
I praise God and am very grateful for my keen eye and curiosity abound.
Be it ever the nature of the fox to carefully play with all that it finds interesting, learn swiftly, and wish to frolic in our beautiful world.
But again, with the staggering idea that mortality exists, i have hope, and faith, and must remember that if it is meant to be, it will be.

Thank you for reading if you did, i'm still honestly stunned by it all.
Something that would be small or just "cool" to most always seems to be some epic spiritual journey for me, lol, but call me a sap.
My heart beats for that which shares my planet, and i try not to let anything pass me by without observation and perspective.
If you think this is bad, you should see me at the beach.
      So if this was a bit grueling for you, here's the TL;DR.
I was digging in the dirt, i found some skink eggs, they may or may not make it.
See, now that's just damn boring.

        For the curious of heart and mind, i will update this when i learn whether or not they hatch.
Fingers crossed, and prayers for the great great great great great great great skink grandchildren of Fox's shrinking garden!

---DO NOT STEAL MY CONCEPTS, ART OR IDEAS!!!---

Description
Hey so this is a bit of another novel, but it's really more for myself than anyone else.
If you read and/or comment, many thanks!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have seen a lot of things this year -- probably more in this year than i ever imagined i'd fine in a lifetime.
I've seen new insects and spiders as i do every year, i've seen owls in trees just yards away.
I've seen a mole run right in front of my feet in the dead of night on its way to a new hole in the ground, i've seen a snake on my back porch, and unfortunately saw it die in person.
I buried a snake this year, that being said.
I've seen my tree fall to pieces before my very eyes.
I've seen baby squirrels come to my mom for peanuts.
I've seen baby rabbits grow into adults, living under our shed as yet new babies appear.
I found the remains of a junco (small feeder bird) with feathers still stuck in its wing bones, and harvested them.
More impressively, i am almost certain that the bird was killed by a red shouldered hawk.
I've seen a pair of sparrows nest in our oriental grass before we cut it down, and even got to see the nest and eggs as i proved to my mom that a nest was there.
Then, when the brood had left, i revisited the nest to find a single egg that had never hatched.
I buried it near where i buried the remains of the junco.
Just today, while wondering if the lantana we freshly re-potted will ever come out of shock from the move, i saw a small, silver baby bird feather literally just fall from the sky.
Never have i gotten to see that, and it was awesome.
Yes, i collected it!
ALSO, today, i noticed a mockingbird is building a nest in our honeysuckle bush.
Guess our yard is just a haven for growth!
I've seen a lot, and i've buried a lot.
All of this amazing stuff has happened in my back yard, which is just breathtaking.
Who knew how active and full of movement every part of the world was?
But today, i saw something i never thought i'd get to see or interact with in a million years.
To tell you the truth, it's not as exciting as i'm building it up to be, but to me it was very personal and difficult to fathom.

I've had to help do a lot of yard work this year, much to my dismay and irritation, though every time we do yard work i find something new and crazy to talk about, even if it's just snail shells.
    We've cleared out two flower beds and replaced them with white marble river rock, as you can see mostly blurred out in the picture above.
But in this picture, we were working on this third flowerbed, which was supposed to be the easiest.
It's our last one, and we didn't manage to get finished (because i tried to lift a bag of rocks for my mom, and strained my hip so bad i thought i paralyzed myself and pain is still shooting all the way down my left leg.
I have an ice pack on my back as i type this), even though we really should've.
Ordinarily there would be no excuse, right?
Right.
Well in this process of clearing the flower beds and replacing the contents with rock, we dug up some dirt and bagged it, tossing it off to the side before laying the rock down.
So i hold the bag, mom shovels in some dirt.
Repeat until bag is full.
Perfectly normal.
So i look down into the dirt, and something catches my eye.
It's small, oval and round, and looks like a pretty rock.
This conversation ensues.

"Me: Hey, what's that stuff in here? *asked with innocent, cheerful curiosity*
Mom: What stuff?
Me: These white thingies in the dirt.
Mom: *getting more dirt* Is it food? *meaning little white specs in most soil to feed plants*
Me: No, it's kinda big, i think they're rocks!"

So i happily and innocently reach in and grab one of these "rocks," expecting a hard substance.
But when i touched it between two fingers, and lifted it, and it was in fact squishy, i SCREAMED and dropped it back into the bag and yelled "IT'S SQUISHY!"
Mom and i looked at each other, then back into the bag.
Before she even suggested it, i had a sinking feeling.
"You think it's eggs?"
I knew it was eggs -- reptile eggs.
Mom suggested snake eggs, and then suggested skink eggs.
Well...
We've had skinks live here for years and years, as long as i can remember.
No doubt, i can imagine there are generations of skinks that have lived here, but in all our time we've never disturbed enough of the area in which we've seen them to ever know where they nest.
That flower bed in the picture, before we removed the ground cover and began to dig it up, was a communal nesting site for the few large female skinks we've seen in our yard.
Even my mom loves the skinks, so obviously we weren't just going to let this go.
I handed her my phone and told her to look it up to double check and figure out what to do while i put on a pair of rubber gloves and began to dig out all of the eggs.
I believe there were at least ten, but i didn't exactly count.
This event was like something from one of my uncomfortable dreams, a stressful dream in which i am faced with a moral obstacle, and am unsure of what to do or how to overcome it.
As mom researched, just when she started to pull up information about wild skinks, i was hit by even more shock.
The lower half of a lifeless mother lizard hung out of the dirt from my carefully digging for eggs.
I was stunned at first, then began to slowly dig her up.
For a moment, she wouldn't move, and i feared we had injured her.
Turns out she was simply stunned, having probably been settling in for the night with her clutch before being unearthed and flipped into the sweltering interior of a black plastic bag, and then it took me a good minute or two to actually find her.
Had i not, i don't know if she would've got out, because she was very stunned, and didn't move even when i uncovered her tail and back legs.
When i uncovered her and she finally sat up, she turned and faced me, locking gazes with dark eyes.
She was confused, and probably just trying to take in fresh air again.
Above all, she was suddenly pitted in a moral conflict of her own; run from untrustworthy man and save her scales, or stay with her clutch and take the risk.
Slowly and, honestly a little dizzy seeming, she crawled over my lap and into the grass, and slinked away.
I wanted to catch her and bring her back, but we had to wait until we got all her eggs.
So i kept digging, carefully clawing through the dirt until i found every last one.
And believe me, i checked more than five times for long periods of time, so i'm fairly confident that i got every egg.
    In the picture, you can see a small area boxed in by brick, walling in mulch, dirt and pulled weeds.
Assuming that the eggs had been under a thin layer of soil with their mother, we covered them, and then i was told to go find the mother.
She hadn't gone far, as she was hiding just by the patio.
I had to chase her a bit (and she was big and gorgeous, by the way), but i did catch her.
She squirmed and wiggled and tried to get away, never once trying to bite (which blew my mind, because when i was a kid i actually did catch a skink just like her and it bit me [leaving a heart-shaped imprint on my knuckle {which i loved}]).
I took her back to the new nest we'd created (i hadn't gotten the mulch yet, but whatever).
I was going to put her down, but i wanted her to see her eggs and smell them and know where they were, so while holding her i quickly unearthed some, then gently set her down and backed away slowly.
She stayed beside them for about a solid minute, breathing hard, and no doubt smelling and seeing her clutch.
We waited for her next move.
That long piece of wood across the rock bed?
She slowly edged her way under it, and stayed there for the next hour and a half or more while we continued carefully working.
In that time, i actually said OUT LOUD, "watch, i bet there'll be another nest."
Yup.
Mom moved more dirt into a new bag, and spooked an even BIGGER, FATTER female away.
I looked down in the back, and there sat a single egg.
Why do i never ever listen to my instincts??
I dug and dug, but could not find any others.
I checked over and over again, but found none.
Online, i read that some wild skinks may lay between five and fifteen eggs in a clutch.
Knowing that, i'll admit it weighs on my conscious to think i may still be missing eggs, but i did my damn best to uncover and dig through everything, and every piece of dirt i could.
Having nowhere else to put it, i covered the lone egg up in a far corner of female 1's nest, hoping the scent of a different egg wouldn't throw her or cause problems.
Idk if female 2 will come back, or if she'll find it, but i will hold onto hope for as long as i can.
    After almost killing myself lifting that bag of rocks, i came in to ice my back (while literally starting to cry from shock over both the pain and the experience) when mom came in a few minutes later, and told me the first female had poked her head out, facing the new nest and wanting to go to it.
She said that once she noticed my mom, though, she hid again, but this is a sure fire sign that she will attend to her eggs.
The part that worries me, is if all the movement and handling will prove jarring for the eggs.
I didn't exactly take my time to inspect them, but none of them seemed damaged, collapsed or anything else.
They were full, soft, and healthy.
So my hopes are that female 1 will be able to do for them what they need, and that they'll hatch.
I prayed a lot then, and i'm praying a lot now.

Maybe it's ridiculous, to love everything in nature so much, but it occurred to me outside tonight that i'm not the only one.
I genuinely found myself wondering, "am i the only one in the world who loves every living thing so much?"
And forgive me, but then i remembered Steve Irwin, God rest his soul.
When i was a child, i watched so much Animal Planet, and The Crocodile Hunter was my favorite show.
Steve taught about loving all things in nature.
Even if something scared him, if something bit him, he never was angry with the animal, however big or small.
He preached love, and i think he's part of the reason why i get so upset when people say they "hate" an animal, because no creature deserves anything less than our love and respect, whether or not we are afraid of it, or have been hurt by it.
I've noticed in my life, when an animal hurts me, a part of me feels honored, or unable to truly be angry, because hasn't mankind honestly done enough to deserve being harmed by animals?
It was their world first.
If i'd had it my way, seeing those eggs tonight, i would've put everything back in the flower bed and never touched it again, just because i finally know where the years and years of skinks in our yard have been hatching their young.
I can't begin to explain the delight that overcomes me whenever i see one of those sneaky little lizards surfing all over the patio and in the flowerbeds.

Now that our flowerbeds are just rock, i fear it is less desirable for the skinks.
After this clutch, i'm sure mom will remove the makeshift nest and pave it over as well, which may very well mark the end of them breeding and living here.
The idea of that loss really saddens me, i've put up with a good bit of minor griefs this year and it's barely Summer!
I know it's just about insane to want to sacrifice control of your yard for your wildlife, but people tend to forget that animals were here first.
This is their world, too, and just because we have dominion doesn't mean we ought to feel entitled to say "it's all mine," because it's not.
We aren't the only ones who live here, but i'm sure if we continue being destructive it could very well end up that way in a late, miserable future (though i personally don't expect us to be here that long).
So...
What i'm trying to say is, it was a bizarre encounter, and one i never though i'd have.
It was like dreams meet nightmares, and as with my wilting, shocked lantana i am left to wonder if the eggs will survive.
To hold such small, fragile, squishy eggs and know that something unborn lives and breathes within it, waiting to be born, it'll haunt me if they don't make it.
The idea that we almost buried a family of small, innocent lizards is nauseating, because we all love them.
I praise God and am very grateful for my keen eye and curiosity abound.
Be it ever the nature of the fox to carefully play with all that it finds interesting, learn swiftly, and wish to frolic in our beautiful world.
But again, with the staggering idea that mortality exists, i have hope, and faith, and must remember that if it is meant to be, it will be.

Thank you for reading if you did, i'm still honestly stunned by it all.
Something that would be small or just "cool" to most always seems to be some epic spiritual journey for me, lol, but call me a sap.
My heart beats for that which shares my planet, and i try not to let anything pass me by without observation and perspective.
If you think this is bad, you should see me at the beach.
      So if this was a bit grueling for you, here's the TL;DR.
I was digging in the dirt, i found some skink eggs, they may or may not make it.
See, now that's just damn boring.

        For the curious of heart and mind, i will update this when i learn whether or not they hatch.
Fingers crossed, and prayers for the great great great great great great great skink grandchildren of Fox's shrinking garden!

---DO NOT STEAL MY CONCEPTS, ART OR IDEAS!!!---