Ferns, Flowers and Snakeskin

Toward the End of May

Walking in a straight line, east to west, along what may have been a low row of stones or a series of stone piles (or both):

That Old Low Stone Row Up There

That I've only recently been looking at closely...

(Above: 1934 Fairchild Aerial Photo. Below: from the updated whatchcallit.)

5/17/2016:

5/23/2016:

Another One at the Southeast Corner

So I'm still looking at, thinking about the foundation and the dripstones. Somebody at sometime "took them out," you could say, so I'm looking at the ones left nearly in place, looking around for where similar stones have ended up. 

  And this was a few weeks back when I looked up and said to myself, "There's another one," meaning a snakes head in a course of stones. The light just happened to be right for me to see the shadows that brought it into focus:

So I got up close:

The long stone extends under the south facing porch, but the suspected snake is looking southeast, resting it's head on the head of another, a smaller stone like a lower jaw between the two.

Closer:

Too close?

It's possible that the snake head is also part of a larger snake extending across the eastern front side of the house and incorporates the smaller snake outlined in yellow.

Stepping back to where I was in the first place, there seems to be a similar smaller snake incorporated into the larger snake(s) of the retaining wall:

Just a little to the left:

Just a little left and upward, my research assistant has nothing to say:

This just may be a pattern, this Serpent Stacking, as I call it.

As opposed to "where none exists."

And I may have to go up to the Indian Cave and look at the stacking for "something familiar:"

I may have missed something there...

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2011/12/indian-cave.html

"Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually exists." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

Aboriginal Alpine Ceremonialism in the White Mountains, California

"At 3,609 m. (11,840 ft.) elevation in the White Mountains of Eastern California is a site containing 216 rock features consisting of cairns, pits, and other stacked-rock constructions but very few artifacts. Two obsidian bifaces, two milling tools, and lichenometric dating point towards site occupation between 440 and 190 cal B.P., contemporaneous with the White Mountains Village Pattern, which was marked by intensive seasonal occupations of multi-family groups in the alpine ecozone of the range. Though the site’s features are similar to facilities associated with artiodactyl hunting across the American West, their diversity, abundance, and distribution are more consistent with ceremonially-oriented sites on the Plains, in the Mojave Desert, and especially on the Plateau. This, in conjunction with the site’s setting, suggests that there were ritual functions associated with the site, and that the ceremonial use of high-altitudes has been overlooked in the region’s research history."

https://www.unr.edu/Documents/liberal-arts/anthropology/cmorgan/Morgan%20et%20al%202014%20-%20White%20Mts%20Ceremonialism.pdf

Even More of that "Little Sunday Morning Walk"

   That little walk around Tom's Farm turned into a little walk into the northwest corner of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Preserve. Tom's Farm shows a jumble of stones and junk - and is quite a collection of historic wire fences. Lots of activity happened, and still happens there.
   A little farther up the road, less activity was going on - in 1934 it looks like woodland, maybe filling in old pasture land:

    That's where the stone walls get really interesting. Recent photos include this one:

If it wasn't part of a longer stone wall, I might get some agreement that it's a stone snake or serpent.

Same with this segment:

(You could place an antler or horn in that groove perhaps.)

One more:

And that pointed stone just behind the larger stone? 

Could that be meant to represent a single horn on a serpent??

This row of stones links to some out crops - and just maybe there's some more "serpenty stuff" going on there, under all that dead fall and debris:

There is a lot to look at in here in this Refuge: 

I just wonder if anyone else besides me is thinking about the stone walls and occasional stone mounds as pre-contact Indigenous or Native American constructions, it being federal land and all, paths being made, stones moved about and other activities:

http://www.zip06.com/news/20150520/a-walk-on-the-wild-side

(And "Clam Gardens" too: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/06/obeds-hammock-and-clam-gardens.html )

Links: http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2011/08/stewart-b-mckinney-national-wildlife.html