My Gallant Green Garden Guy

He is an old friend.

Thought He doesn't seem to get around much, both my wife and I are always glad to find him at his usual hangout.

As we warmed into late April, I once again could not help but notice and was hearten to find our 
gaily bedight lizard friend in sunshine and in shadow, once again 
stretched out around his staked territory, the "watering hole" where the garden hose connects to the faucet beside the garage.  This large anole has been greeting us from this location for several years, a gaudy green hide with widely and wildly rotating eye sockets watchfully 
sunning himself on brick, iron fence pickets, gray garden hose, window planter box or amongst the wild flowering stalks that have taken root below the water faucet.

It is his territory, and he tells us as much by extending his red throat flap (dewlap) as a warning, and though we might take his head-bobbing and emphatic push-up gesture as a neighborly greeting, I know he means it to communicate much sterner stuff - Back off you big varmints! This is my turf, go find another place to eat your own bugs! - or I'll thrash you!.  He is gallant in his defense of his turf, he will bluster and threaten us long before he slips slowly away to shield himself behind some convenient obstacle.  He never runs and skitters quickly away from us, and we respect him all the more for that.  We are not on a first-name basis, we talk of "the anole by the faucet", but no one here has proposed a familiar moniker for this denizen, guardian of the back gate, perhaps out of respect for his lordly dignity.  He is plainly and simply, THE Green Anole. 

If you were to ask me what I like about Texas, high on my list would be the prolific population of green anoles and geckos in my backyard.  Growing up in California, I had access to a good variety of snakes and a couple of lizard species, the "blue belly" western fence lizard and the ornery alligator lizard.  But to get an anole, Mom would have to shell out 49 cents (or was it 29 cents) to get a "North American chameleon" [misnomer: the Anolis carolinensis will change color from garish Gatorade green to brown, but it is NOT a chameleon as any fourth grader who has read every single reptile and amphibian book in the school library will tell you].  My sister had an anole from the pet shop and named him "Mr. Turner" - not bad for a little girl.  I once chose the anole as the subject for research and an essay in Mr. Mortensen's 4th grade class.  My essay was selected by Mr. Mortensen to be read by him in front of the class as an example of good writing, with the caveat before he read by paper aloud that he would not name the author.  But then he mispronounced anole [a-NOL] as "a-nul-AY", I spoke up right then and there to correct my teacher's mispronunciation; immediately being greeted with an exasperated stare lacking any warmth or kindness.  I guess I should have remained an anonymous author of reptilian essays.

Anyway, me and reptiles and anoles go way back.  I count them has good omens and pleasant creatures of the God's bright and beautiful realm.  Long may THE Green Anole gather insects and be held in grandeur by us, his co-habitant of garage and garden.  He is my Gallant Green Garden Guy.

**and he let me take a selfie with him!