Marcia, Please help me find out what kind of snake I came across today. While I was at the local dog park (near Orlando) I came across a yellow with black stripes snake. It looked to be between 3.5-4 feet long and did not appear at first glance (that was all I gave it out of fear) to be shiny. I was about 3 feet from it and didn't know it until my dog almost stepped on it. She obviously didn't see it either. The snake seemed a pit peeved about the whole thing but it decided not to attack and to slowly slither towards ME to get away from my dog. Needless to say, I took off in a different direction real quick and hollered for my dog to follow. I am not like you or others on this site. I am not a fan of snakes and am extremely afraid of them. Although, I don't mind the black racers that seem to have taken up permanent residence in MY back yard and they love to procreate often (or so it seems). I have seen a lot less field rats since the racers moved in and that makes me very happy. Anyway, can you help me figure out what this snake was? I have spent hours and hours online tonight trying to find it and just can't seem to find anything that looks like it. I am guessing that it is not dangerous to me or my dogs??? I am scared to take my dogs back through those woods that they so dearly love. As soon as I told them, "No more woods until the snakes are gone again," they "told" me to find it if it was dangerous or not and if it isn't that they want to go back again. So that is mostly why I am asking you for your help. We all love the walks but I am afraid of the snakes. Please help me feel safer about going back. Thanks in advance for your help.

Thanks both - for your comments. I'm going to remove the covering at the Water Meter end; and then attempt to blow out any existing water with compressed air. (Have some towels at the access door.) I don't think that will actually work very well, because of the length of run, etc.; but it is extremely difficult to even run the cotton string up the length to 'wick water' out. I will then seal it up with low expansion foam. My wife & I believe it is probably collecting from the downdraft in the wall... I would like to create a drain point in the pipe. Would not be that hard to do. But this would not work out well at all. We already had water coming in once - after a week of hard rain - when the ground was SOAKED - so if I create an opening at the bottom of the pipe - put in some gravel and all - the opening itself would be a problem - after a lot of rain. Thanks again. Any other thoughts or observations - are welcome.

Thanks gang, made me feel better abt the teeny pix. Grammy, not that busy, these have been works over a number of years; pretty busy on multiple works now though, you know ... so many quilts ... so little time!

Nice job, I think it looks much improved! One thing which really impresses me is how you clump things up nicely so they don't all look so 'lost', I tend to put in one of everything and it becomes a hodge podge. i think you'll be even more impressed in another two years when things settle in a bit. Also I wouldn't be in a rush to get rid of your 'heinious' evergreens, they do add some generic mass of green which balances the other plantings... Or at least I think so... Sometimes if something just bothers you it just keeps bugging you till you get rid if it! was there any particular reason you got rid of 'cool splash'? I was eyeing it last year and the straight species is supposed to be trouble-free so....