Carolyn, I must apologize for my attitude. I am an empty nester who has taken and inordinate interest in my garden critters. Like most moms, "Don't you dare say anything bad about my kid!! I don't care if he bites, spits or throws hard objects, he's not a bad kid...he's MINE!" I feel the same way about my yard critters and can get very defensive about them. Sorry if I was very harsh, overbearing and/or offensive.

Sally - Dang, girl! You could be my twin sister!

I love my garden critters too. Except for any rats that sometimes try to nest in my yard. But those rats bring the owls, the bobcats, and the snakes. So I am with you Sally, let Mother Nature do her thing! She'll balance it all out. Mother Nature does it better than any human could! Besides ... the critters were here first in the area before my home was ever built. I am in THEIR home territory when I am outside. Live and let live! Part of the fun of gardening is all the critters in my yard that entertain me!

Sally

I didn't take it that way and I totally get the empty nest thing. I have been there myself - I am looking forward to tomorrow, I am meeting my son for breakfast.

I love the garden critters and the pond critters. The only thing that I didn't like was when we had a muskrat discover our pond and I was more concerned about the muskrat ruining my liner.

Oh, we need to start a new thread, Gardening For The Critters!!!!

I started the thread called Gardening for the critters under the All Things Garden forum. Share what you do to attracts the critters that live in your area.

Love the Sammy and Sybil story. Funny how easy we get use to our critters. We have several black snakes. Pretty harmless, great rodent control and I don't mind having them here. Might feel a bit different if they lived in my ponds where I reach in blindly to move plants and pick up the filters.

Now that I know that Sammy and Sybil are not hazardous to my health, I love watching them in the pond at night. They come out just after dark, just after I put my garden lights on. They seem to love to play in the fountain from the pond spitter and play among the plants. I think they live under the pond liner itself so they really need a shower after laying in the dirt all night. After that, they go out frogging and bugging, then early morning, just before dawn, they come back and take another shower before heading back under the pond again. I do love watching the critters in my yard.

Sally - Neat observations of your snakes. You should try to get a photo of them.

I love all my garden critters, too! A garden wouldn't be a garden without them! I don't have any snakes around my ponds, but I do have one that lives under the door jam of the front door. it only comes out at night because I leave the porch light on and all the bugs (beetles) come in. Easy dinner for this snake! My dh worried that it might get too big eventually and get stuck under the door jam because of it's size and not be able to leave. We are prepared to remove the door jam if necessary to get it out. But right now, it is still a small snake.

Here are two photos that I caught of it tonight as it was getting ready to slither out from it's home under my front door!

Here's a picture of Sammy slithering out from under the pond, ready to go out food shopping, I suppose.

What a handsome fella Sammy is!

Becky that is a very pretty snake , do you know what kind it is?

Cinda - It is a corn snake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... We actually had 2 as pets when my children were 4 and 7 years old. Got them for the pet store. But they are apparently quite common in the wild here. And I agree, very beautiful snakes.

I would have that snake as a pet it is quite pretty in color and markings, do the colors change when it gets older?


This is the little snake that lives around our front porch , It is very small compared to yours , about the size of a pencil.

Beautiful snake Cinda! Kinda reminds me of a juvenile DeKay's Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi) : http://www.enature.com/fieldgu...

My corn snake is very small right now, too. But I have had very large ones that I have found around my garden areas. Love them! They keep the rodent population down.

I did look up the little snake the first time I saw one and it did say brown snake , thought the name was so plain. at least they could say cute brown snake or something

Hi.

I lived in Montreal for 50 years. The weather there ensured that there were no snakes to speak of, save for an occasional garter snake once in a while. However, when I moved to South Florida 6 years ago, I started seeing snakes at least once a week, I was freaked out.

But life saw to it that I would lose that snake aversion (herpetophobia). A friend of ours lived with us for 3 months. One day, he brought a ball python (python regius). I was horrified. Slowly, I became attached to that gentle creature and since our friend was not taking any care of the snake, i decreed that the snake would be handled every day. She would also get the best care we could provide.

That baby has become our pride and joy. When I go on a cruise, I miss my snake. Cruise lines are adamant on one point: NO SNAKES ON BOARD! Lucy must stay behind. My wife is as inftuated with Lucy as I am. When our friend decided to go back to Indiana in an unsafe car, I put my foot down and told him that he could go wherever he wanted, but the snake had to stay with us. My wife was upset with the idea. She was secretly plotting his demise. He would have to pry the snake from her cold dead fingers before she allowed any bad treatment to come the snake's way.

I have snakes slithering around in my garden. They never bothered me. I never bothered them. I know there are quite a few wild snakes that have taken up residence under a few full-grown blue agaves and it's fine with me. They keep the opossum population down quite efficiently. They are nocturnal and non-venomous. I don't worry about them. They don't worry about me. And the groundkeepers in our development give the agaves a wide berth.

Here is a picture of Lucy after I managed to overcome my fear of snakes. She was just a wee hatchling, then. That was 2 years ago. Isn't she fabulous? Gosh, I am beginning to sound like those parents who pull out pictures of their kids out of their wallet at the drop of a hat. I should take a picture of her again. She has grown quite a bit since then. She's 3.5 feet long, now. She spends whole evenings wrapped around my neck. She also enjoys climbing on my head, where she spends hours on end wrapped around my shaved cranium.

Happy gardening to all of you.
Sylvain.

Who needs a heated rock when you have a warm head to bask on.

All non-poison snakes are welcome on our land. We do have a son who is under 2 years old. So I kill ALL of the rattlers, copper heads, amd cotton mouths.

Phil

I don't blame you - my children always come first too!

Well... .good yours isn't of the posioneous type.. they are amazing creatures.. I haven't seen any on my roof yet... which means there haven't been any in the pants I've brought in... I have bought lizards though.. in with my plants...
I saw a clip the other day of one that was inadvertently killed when someone in Malasia was doing some work with a power shovel and noticed blood in the soil he had removed... they found a 55 ft Boa constrictor in there... the university thought the snake was 140 years old..
oh here it is... too big for under a threshold...
http://www.odditieszone.com/ph...