Well...I appreciate all your responses, and I'm going to assume it's a common garter snake...for my OWN peace of mind...LOL I believe he was so grumpy because of the flash from the camera...it probably scared the bejeezus out of'm. Plus...I'm wondering if it isn't the onset of hibernation time. I mean, afterall, he WAS way down under some pretty hard, clay covered by about 4" of mulch. He was probably sleeping...or getting his last full meal of night crawlers when I uncovered him. *I'm in SE PA, not Florida at the moment. He's gone now and I don't know where...hehehe...but I covered the hole back up with the mulch. BTW: When I let Picture it! automatically tweak the color and brightness levels, the colors of the snake were changed a bit. Here are two pics showing actual color...

rhizo, I took another picture yesterday and it came out just as blurry. Something seems to be wrong with my camera. The leaves do appear to be chewed up by something. They look chewed, but at the same time also sort of scorched into the colours of brown and black. There's also tiny black pellets on the damaged leaves that look like the droppings of some creature. Trouble is I don't see any creature. The damage is only on on branch tips. Such a pity, because the tree is into a massive phase of new growth right now. And thanks for taking the time to try to figure out what's going on.

There’s always Austrocylindropuntia subulata monstrose, but I don’t think that has a bunch of fuzzies like yours. Fuzzies is totally a botanical term ;). My guess is an Opuntia cross between subulata x vestita. I see it in stores as Austrocylindropuntia ‘Rollercoaster’. What gives it that real snowy fuzzy look is the Austrocylindropuntia vestita. It can take a ton of light/sun all day if you can give it or the new growth will become lanky.

I don’t know what the first one is but I believe the 2nd is a Graptosedum Blue giant and the 3rd i think is a Sedeveria Pink Granite. I have that same 2nd succulent and spent forever trying to identify. I’m still not sure if I’m right!