Your garden is beautiful, and I thank you for sharing that amusing incident with us! I also have at least one resident garter snake, which I know is to be expected because I and several of the neighbors have created some small walls of stacked fieldstone around our gardens from some leftover stones the builders of the development left behind. Looks pretty, but I know the snakes like it too! I also have five kitty cats, four of which like to come outside with me when I tend my gardens in front of the house (the back is off limits to my cats - that's where my bird houses and bird feeders are). Well I have seen my friendly snake wandering amongst the plants up front on several occasions, and the cats have seen him as well. My question is, if a closer encounter were to occur and the snake actually bit one of the cats, would the cat get sick or suffer other untoward effects??? My daughter (resident snake lover) says no, the bite would not be poisonous unless it was a rattlesnake, and that the only concern would be of infection, but still I worry. What about if the cat bit the snake, would the cat get sick from that? I know that sounds dumb, but believe it or not, one of my cats picked up a toad in his mouth once - didn't even bite or swallow it - and got so sick from that toad that he almost died!!! Huge vet bill and a couple of days later he came home and has been fine since, but the vet had never even heard of a cat getting sick from a toad. He later did some research and learned that a colleage knew of a pet lizard once that ate a toad, and the lizard died from it within the hour. After that incident, I keep very close watch on the cats while they are outside because I don't want them catching and eating ANYTHING like that again! They HAVE caught a couple bats that somehow got inside the house, and that's scary too, so even though they are essentially indoor cats, they all have up-to-date rabies vaccinations. Boy, pet ownership is even more expensive than gardening, but that's a whole 'nother subject! Thanks again for the story and the beautiful pic of your garden!

In my opinion best advice is to seek treatment for phobia. I had a severe phobia of dogs that I had to get treated and it is very worth it and I think a lot of people that have more "socially acceptable phobias" (e.g. spiders or snakes rather than beloved dogs, people thought I was evil for being scared of dogs! even though I have been up to cottonmouths before and been fine, didn't bother me,... but as a kid I got CHASED DOWN by dogs and attacked so...). We share this world with a lot of creatures, it's something to get used to. Desensitization&exposure therapy is best to build yourself up first before you ever see one. That being said, eliminating brush piles in areas you frequent/maintain a lot, keeping it open will keep snakes out of those areas and make them favor more wild spots. Keeping things open tends to be best for the more cultivated areas of the garden anyway, to maintain airflow. ALSO snakes are often not very active in the day except after rains. They don't like being out in the open especially in the day because one of their main predators, hawks, can see them. I rarely see snakes around my house and I have a bunch of brush lol I've only seen them out at night (there's the cutest baby kingsnake but i digress). avoid times when snakes are most active and you'll be a lot less likely to see them. anyway best of luck treating your phobia, it's a hard road but very worth it to be free of it

Pretty kitty Liz. The story of the bat reminds me when we had the antiques mall in the school building, it was not unusual to be standing behind the register waiting on a customer in the evening and to see a bat swoop down from the up stairs and the customers would never notice. The bats were bad too about setting off the alarm at night and we would have to drive all the way into town and check things out. The police would always give us a call and go there. They were nice about it. Anyway glad the snake didn't bite anyone. Sue

You know pdu - your way of travelling without a carrier or crate works... until it doesn't. Sounds like a mellow guy but all it takes is one sudden loud unexpected noise (with a car door open) at a rest stop and your mellow cat suddenly isn't. Im on a lost cat forum and did a ton of research when my cat once went missing - cats lost at rest stops, campsites and while travelling or moving are all too common an occurrence. Add to that people being in a hurry and not willing or able to stay hours or days to look.... its a sad situation for the poor cat who may likely be abandoned ,.... and the people who generally are kicking themselves quite mercilessly for having been so careless. I'm truly baffled why people would not take even the simplest precautions. Carriers breaking in half (the screws coming loose) are another all too common occurrence. BTW - fyi missingpetpartnership.org is an amazing resource about lost pet behavior - dogs may panic and run and keep running, but cats lost in strange surroundings will typically hunker down silently (they are capable of concealing themselves in very small places) and not respond when called until they've calmed down which may take hours - maybe days. Your search would involve combing every square inch of the area - cant assume they'll come when called .... although perhaps at night when its very quiet you might be lucky and hear a tiny scared meow in reply.