Oh that is just like a missionary story I have told over and over to the Sunday school children. I always bring my(toy) stuffed 8ft snake in to wrap around my shoulders when I tell it. It was about a naughty snake that kept sneaking into a henhouse even after his wife told him of the danger. After the eggs kept disppearing the little boy and uncle who owned the hen, hard boiled one egg and snuck it into the nest. The snake gobbled it and feeling quite proud with what he was getting away with tried to get back out the hole in the chicken coop when WHAP!!!!! The morale was Obey and DONT BE GREEDY!

if you have the pic in photobucket or Picasa, they give you the code to use (pick the HTML code). http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw251 identifies all the common "black snakes" in Florida. Several of them have light chins, and none of those are poisonous.

Eastern Hognosed Snake (Heterodon platirhinos). Harmless toad-eaters. That snake looks suspiciously skinny at the posterior end of the body. Might be a female that just finished nesting. They lay eggs in burrows or hollow logs, etc. The babies are cute as all heck!

Agree with trickyputt. Familiarize your family with the visual characteristics of poisonous snakes and you should be good to go. One good way to make sure it is not a copperhead is to use Google Images to find pictures of copperheads. Yours is clearly not a copperhead. In addition it is good to know what activity you can get away with when you see a snake. Viper type snakes coil up, strike, and release to attack their prey. They need to be coiled up before they can strike. They do not need to be coiled to bite, but in order to lash out at prey, then need to coil. Some other snakes, coral snakes for example, do not coil and do not strike like vipers. They need to bite and chew on their prey. Side note: I started living in rural areas about 5 years ago. The first night staying in a friend's mobile home I saw a huge rattler. It was at night and with a flashlight, they have a very weird glow to them. I did not approach. After I moved to my own house I was walking my dog one night. She is blind and is very well coordinated. I noticed she seemed to briefly get tangled up in something as we walked along the street, so I investigated. It was a coral snake (red on yellow) about a foot long. Got a shovel from a neighbor and killed that one. Then just this past weekend I saw about a 2-3 ft black snake on my front walk. I approached to get it to move away from the door. It easily scooted/slithered into some taller grass in front.