List of What I Found Under My Bridge Decking

For the better part of this last week, I have been tearing out and replacing the rotting and splintering decking on the bridge across the creek at my cabin.   Here is a list of things I found under the planks:

One seven-inch garter snake

Two nurseries for tiny sugar ant larvae

Lots and lots of nails bent over and mashed askew back into the top of the support beams

At least 1000 too many shiny, creepy, scurrying, hanging-on-to-the-underside-of-board type spiders

A carpenter ant colony occupying the last plank on the west end of the deck

Various cocoons

Sprawling colonies of white mold

Here is a list of what I dropped into the creek and was forced to retrieve from the water while working on the project:

Electric drill (still attached to the cord and my running generator)

Hammer (three times)

Pry bar (twice)

Pencil (on its way to the west coast now)   

—Mitchell Hegman