~ * W * E * L * C * O * M * E ~ Mowermaid ! ! ! Thanks for sharing your ideas... and thanks for chiming in.... You are a lovey addition to the group ! ! ! and as you can read here.... there are many many lovely talented people here willing to share IDEAS ~ Thoughts ~ Instructions ~ Hopes & Dreams & Lots & L O T S ~ of Love & ENCOURAGEMENTS ! ! ! Again ~ W * E * L * C * O * M * E ! ! ! God Bless ! SusieSunshine PS I'm a Texan 2 ~ just doing so Missionary Work Up here in the Frozen KLONDIKE ! ! ! Gotta get back to my ~ T E X A S ~ ASAP !!!

That picture is good enough for a definitive identification. Your snake is a juvenile black rat snake or juvenile gray rat snake. Oak snake is the common local name for gray rat snakes. Juvenile black rat snakes and gray rat snakes both look like gray rat snakes and the gray rat snake maintains its pattern throughout its life while black rat snakes lose their distinctive patterning and become all black with a white underside as they age and get larger. Given your location in northeast Georgia it is more likely to be a juvenile black rat snake or an intergrade between the black and gray rat snake. In any rate it is most definitely a rat snake. They are harmless.

Nancy, You can glean a lot of knowledge by reading some of the articles in the link below. It isn't a cake walk, but when you look at the lushness in Athens and my area north of Atlanta,plus plus, you'll COME TO LOVE IT. Ha. There, I've said it again. Have been gardening in this soil type for over 30 years. It can be a PIB as yolos says, but there are solutions. Here is a link that might be useful: Benefits of gardening in red clay soils

Yes he is that. The guy who caught it for me said 'rattlesnake' and the animal control who came to take it away to release it said 'copperhead'. The problem is I can not find a pic of a copperhead that looks like it. It did look like it had a little rattle on the tail but never made noise-didn't even coil up. It stood its ground like a copperhead though. (Not that I have had any experience with either). The only pic I found that had that 'chestnut color' stripe going down his back was a timber rattlesnake. I live in Harlem Ga and didn't think we had them here? He/she was about 18-20 inches (I didn't get close enough to measure).