This morning after riding back from aerobics class I opened the garage door and something in the garage slithered. Good thing Jake was off running errands or he'd never set foot in the garage again! A baby snake lay in the middle of the floor. It slithered under some 2 x 4s and when I shifted those under a hose it went. The snake had a very dark head and a patterned body - black and tan. It was so small it was difficult to make out much more except for a bright orange-red tongue. Since I don't know anything about snakes of New Mexico, I'm calling it a baby rattlesnake (I did look online and there seem to be 72 species of snakes in New Mexico, less than half of which are rattlesnakes). For those of you who work at the Arboretum, you know visitors automatically assume all snakes are some poisonous variety! I moved the hose and all 5 inches of snake lunged at me, but I managed to drop a pyrex bowl over it and slide the JC Penny's ad under it (see photo). I released it over on the other side of the road by the arroyo.
Last night we had a gentle rain and an almost complete rainbow arched over the hills. Guess that house at one end must be where the pot of gold is! There was actually a faint double rainbow but the camera didn't pick it up.
1 comment:
Did you read about the smallest snake species found yet - 4" adult! Down in the Carribean. Maybe you found the smallest adult rattlesnake in New Mexico! You could have named it after Jake!
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