I Fell Back on My Butt! A Surprise in the Garden



I reached into my flower garden to move aside some plants so as to pick up some debris and pull some weeds. Suddenly my eyes rested on the snake in the picture. It was extremely close to my hand. I now own the fastest hands in the county. As I quickly withdrew from the snake I lost balance and fell over on my butt. I was already crouched down so there was not far to fall. It was a surprise that caught me off guard. I laughed at my predicament and got up and brushed my self off before going into the house to retrieve the camera. The snake looked well fed. It was probably only about 16" to 18" long and quite thin except for the middle of the body where it appears that a recent meal was bulging the body outward.  Next time I will wear the heavy leather gloves that I usually wear for yard work  before reaching where I can't see.  Earlier this year I saw several pencil sized snakes that were marked just like this one. 

 When we moved into our home there was a large corn snake living under our garage floor. Sometimes it would lay on our steps to absorb the heat and other times it could be seen slithering into the crack between the garage floor and driveway. We seldom had any mice around the garage while that snake lived with us. 

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