Jacobo and I have captured some spring fauna in the creek next to our condo. We caught a garter snake on the first warm day of the year and put it in a large, glass aquarium. Jacobo named it “Lucy” because its body is loose. It eats earthworms on a regular basis, despite its captivity. Yesterday, we fashioned a minnow trap from the rusty mesh frame of an old truck air filter (that we found in the creek) and the cut-off top of a 2-liter pop bottle. We set the trap in a bottleneck of the creek, and this morning we found a small crawdad that had wandered into the cone of the pop bottle, and couldn’t find the opening again. We put the crawdad in a small aquarium with some creek water and a rock for some cover. Jacobo liked the name “Chipper” when I called it little chipper, but Jacobo later changed the name to “Flipper” because it flips around with its tail. All the neighborhood kids come by to see the snake and Jacobo has become quite popular.