Slytherin'

Yesterday I took a walk out to the field and just had that weird "something is going to happen" feeling. There was just something in the air...It was warm and the sun was out but it seemed slightly hazy. It seemed like earthquake weather and since there had been some quakes in L.A. recently it wouldn't have surprised me to feel a shake. But no, there was something more exciting to come.
As I walked through the backyard toward the lower deck steps, I noticed a large palm frond had fallen onto the deck.  I thought it was odd because it was still green and had no reason to fall. I stood on the first step for a minute just pondering the oddity when I heard a thumping sound from under the deck. Henry heard it too, and ran to stick his nose under to investigate. I could see some bunnies under there, but that wasn't it. I walked along the perimeter of the deck looking but the sound stopped and I didn't see anything. When I started to go back toward the step, I finally noticed the huge snake that was all coiled up right next to where I had been standing! Yep, I screamed. The kids ran out and the dogs ran over. The snake was NOT happy about the dogs and was in striking position and hissing so loudly I couldn't figure out if it was actually rattling that I heard. Turns out it was a harmless Gopher snake. Gopher snakes are good to have around because they eat gophers, of course, but at first glance they are easily mistaken for a rattle snake.
We stood around watching him for awhile and then dad came home and we discussed what we should do. Some snakes are good to have on your property but I didn't want my dogs fighting with it. We decided to let Mr. Snake live and he slithered away into the field next door.
C-16 took a lot of great pictures.