Heard Jake barking his familiar snake bark, came outside to check it out.


The round eyes tell me it's not venomous, yet I'm cautious because of the diamondback camouflage. A sheep in wolves' clothing.


It's found comfy cover in the shade. The plant produces tempting looking gourds, but they're poisonous to eat. The small head is deceiving, the snake is nearly 6'.

Jake is called off the helpful gardener snake. Out it comes, knowing exactly where its heading.


Into the woodpile it goes. Rodents look out!


Jake was rewarded for being a good watch dog. The snake is safe and happy, and very welcomed on this property.

Oh my word, more snakes! (Hello, Jake.)

So, you know for sure this is a sheep in wolves' clothing, or are you speculating?

See, where I live, I mean, there ARE snakes, surely, somewhere? But we don't see them in our daily lives. Didn't even in the countryside. Whooole different place, the desert.

Really nice pictures, by the way. What's the attractive blue and white building?

Never mind, cross-posting. "Gardener snake." Yes, go have a nice mousie lunch, slithery one.

Are the friendly, helpful, non-poisonous ones actually fun to watch? Seems they might be.

Bob, my friend, neighbor, landlord, verified it being a gardener snake. I wasn't sure if it was a king or bull snake, seems gardeners grow far bigger here than anywhere else I've seen them. They're none venomous but can still inflict a nasty bite if threatened. This one coiled up to strike when Bob moved it along with a poke of a calves milk bottle nipple. Best to leave them be, they can still carry bacteria, or strike at your eye.

The blue building is my house, the side/back door. I love it here. Bob's been on a church men's retreat so I've been busy the last few days. It's honest and dusty work, the best kind for me now. They offer to pay me or deduct from my rent but I decline. She left some fresh baked apple pie and use of their laundry room. I shared dinner with her last night after we finished up feeding the animals and cleaning up. Bob topped off the a/c fluid in my truck. I treated Jake to a cooked 1/4 lb of Black Angus chopped beef. One hand (or paw or hoof) helping the other, LiSe's version of 15 - give and receive. Even the snake is part of that. We give it a safe wood pile, it eats mice and insects. Rattlers, well, unless they get inside, as one did in their place last year, we just encourage them to be on their way. Without them and coyotes, we'd be overrun with rabbits and rats.

Your snake may be a checkered garter snake.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42389547@N00/8046940602/

The kind of garter snake found here have long stripes and seem half tame. They are thin and not so long as your snake. I sometimes need to rescue a garter snake from the cat. She makes it coil up and dances around it like a mongoose. When the snake tries to uncoil and crawl off, she taps it with a paw and makes it coil back up. If I don't intervene, this game goes on for hours.

pocossin said:

Your snake may be a checkered garter snake.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42389547@N00/8046940602/

The kind of garter snake found here have long stripes and seem half tame. They are thin and not so long as your snake. I sometimes need to rescue a garter snake from the cat. She makes it coil up and dances around it like a mongoose. When the snake tries to uncoil and crawl off, she taps it with a paw and makes it coil back up. If I don't intervene, this game goes on for hours.

Click to expand...

I think that's spot on, looks very much alike. I was quite surprised to hear that it was a gardener snake that big. We have a lot of large non-venomous snakes here, but I wouldn't have imagined that to be a gardener snake, but I trust the source.

Yes, the long stripes and smaller are what I've always associated with gardener snakes. We used to pick them up as kids and let them twine about our fingers and arms.

That's funny, your cat the mongoose; can picture that. She sounds like a great cat.