A Surprise Visitor

This morning, I noticed that the weather was unusually nice so I decided it would finally be a good day to do a little more work on my large scale steam locomotive and the trolley.  I had painted and weathered both of them but I never got around to sealing all my work with a matte UV resistant sealer.  This is something I would prefer to do outside since I would be applying this sealer from a spray can and it appears as though today would be a good day.

My plan was to go outside to grab a couple of sawhorses and a piece of plywood so I could make a utilitarian table where I could safely place my big steam locomotive and trolley.  We've had bears and skunks in our yard quite often lately so I've been very vigilant about scanning the area before I step too far away from our door.  I stepped outside...  no bears...  no skunks...  then headed to behind the house where I left my sawhorses.

As I was about to place my right foot back behind the sawhorses so I could more easily lift them and move them, I noticed a snake sitting there in the sun right in the spot where I had planned to place my right foot.  Although I had already lifted my foot and was swinging my leg outward, I immediately noticed that I was about to place my foot down in the exact spot where the snake sat so I slowly moved my leg back to my side as I quickly identified this type of snake.  Fortunately, this was a relatively harmless garter snake.  

I say "relatively harmless" because I recently learned that these snakes are actually a bit venomous.  They only have enough toxicity to mildly paralyze their small prey.  This venom has no effect on humans.  Well, I suppose if you had an allergy to this particular venom, then you could go into anaphylactic shock.  That being said, I've wrangled many garter snakes when I was young, been bitten a few times, but never noticed any ill effects due to the bites other than a little blood.  

What is funny is that I was recently thinking that it was odd that I hadn't seen any snakes yet this summer.  We have a yard full of frogs due to all the rain we've had and, consequently, our lawn being perpetually wet but I hadn't seen any of the frogs' primary predator...  snakes.  Now I almost stepped on one.

I immediately headed inside to grab one of my cameras so I could get a few shots of this rare visitor.  What usually happens at this point after I see some wildlife that I want to capture in photographs...  I run inside to get a camera and an appropriate lens...  quickly run back outside...  only to find that the wildlife moved on and I missed my chance.  Fortunately, that didn't happen this time.  The snake was still lying there when I returned so I managed to capture a few good shots...