They're Back.........

NO!! Not my patio flowers, Sillies!!!

I'm talking SNAKES!!!!!

I'm generally a nature lover at soul....I like frogs and toads, even though they're kinda slimy....I even respect (most) spiders....

HOWEVER, one thing I do not tolerate is SNAKES!!

And we have a plethora of them!!

No, not itty bitty little tiny garter snakes....or even harmless pretty little garden varieties....

We have huge, honking pine snakes (a/k/a "Western Fox Snakes")....

We've always had a "sighting" or two each year....but, several years back, we put a pool in our backyard.  My DH cleverly landscaped our uneven yard around it with lovely rocks....

And they came.....

(Note....this guy above is a newborn....)



Now we have a hibernaculum I do believe......

(Look close.....he's wrapped all along that rock....)

These guys average around 5' - 6' long....but we've had much, much, larger ones....They often stretch across country roads out here like the traffic flow monitors and you can't see beginning or end.... In fact, a few years back, one stretched from our garage door diagonally across our driveway to the back-around.....I nonchalantly stepped over it....not thinking it could possibly be....but it was.....

Yes, we've tried all sorts of things - decoy owls, moth balls, cement under the rocks, removing the greenery and a majority of the rocks....And they still come back....year after year.....

And it seems, they only come out when I do.....
(And please don't tell me they're more frightened of me than I am of them....SOOOO NOT true!!)

So, if one fine summer day you think to yourself that you have not heard from TheCrankyCrow in a while, you just might know what happened.....

:o