“Where’s that other cinder block?” cousin Burt asked. He and Jenny and I were pulling the raft and dock out of the lake in preparation for the coming Michigan winter.
I looked to my left and saw one sitting on the hill beside the dry milkweeds with their swollen seed pods hanging from dry stalks.
“You mean this one?” I asked. (I am proud to say that I know just what a cinder block looks like — an example of my handiness in winter prep.)
I picked up the block and set it down on the wet sand beach.
There were two Red-backed Salamanders in the rectangle of dead grass where the block had been sitting. And since it was fall and had been cold the night before, they didn’t move even with the block gone and the sun shining down on them.
These salamanders are not endangered. And there is a lot of habitat in that place, so I suspect that the two of them were not alone. But I must say that seeing them there was one of the highlights of my long weekend.