If you can take one more snake story. Last week I had taken my basket out to my pepper patch to pick some green chili. When I came in I was so tired and did not feel like roasting and putting the peppers up, so I set the basket in the frige to deal with it the next day. I tended to the peppers the next day, but that night when I went into my kitchen there was a little black snake about 14 to 15 inches long sticking it's head out from the bottom of the frige. Needles to say I was shocked. Ran to get the broom and a glass jar. I tried to get the snake to come all the way out and then got the bottom of the boom on it and coaxed it into the jar. Ran out my back door and with my elbow opened the garage. I flung it so hard on to the driveway that I'm sure that little snake had one heck of a headache. When my husband called that night I was frantic about how could a snake get into the house. I remembered the next day that while I was picking my peppers I had set the basket down on the ground to reach under a pepper plant. That rascal must have gotten into my basket and was in for a real surprise when he wound up in my fringe. I hope he was all alone. Snakes don't run in packs do they? I still get upset when I open the frige.

FWIW... "king snake" refers generically to anything in the genus Lampropeltis (i.e., Arizona mountain king snakes (Lampropeltis pyromelana), desert king snakes (Lampropeltis getula splendida), prairie king snakes (Lampropeltis calligaster), etc.). The genus Lampropeltis also includes milk snakes (various forms of Lampropeltis triangulum). "Gopher snake" usually refers to all of the western US forms of Pituophis catenifer except the "bull snake", Pituophis catenifer sayi, which doesn't occur in Arizona. This snake is a Sonoran gopher snake, Pituophis catenifer affinis. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming... Patrick Alexander

I returned home once last year to find a cat-damaged snake trembling on my driveway. I took it off and let it go and hope it recovered. I had about given up on still having any snakes left but found a baby under some newspaper mulch this spring.:') A friend has a pond and puts those ~18" cube stacking plastic crates with latticed open sides upside-down in the bottom of her pond to put pots on. The lattices allow smaller fish to go inside and escape predators, but maybe the fish eating the spawn could still get in. Something with small enough holes could protect the spawn, though. I decided you have to be a lover of wildlife to have a water feature, though, as they seem to pull in wildlife from all over. I mainly like to grow edible stuff, fruits and vegetables, so pass on the pond even though they are pretty and interesting in the garden.

That is rotten railroad tie in the above picture that they were under. I only saw the writhing garter snake's tail before I turned over the tie. I have rotten ties because I can't lift the sound ones. I am thinking of removing them from my yard because last time it was baby rats inside a different rotten tie. I am not good at estimating but maybe 3 feet. They weren't large snakes. I am hoping it will eat the small copperheads before they grow up. I think this is the same guy in March. You can compare his girth to the soaker hose which is what I thought he was before he moved.