I've had it with these mother-effing snakes on this mother-effing plane! (okay, no, not really)

We've only had two snakes in our yard...actually, only one was in the yard.  The other was in the house.  I'm still not sure how that happened.  And Shawn was the one to find both of them (some unknown one [the outside one] and a brown ground snake [the house snake]).  So you can imagine my surprise when I more than doubled that number on Saturday. 

I was working on my grass bed area - pulling weeds, spreading mulch, you know, the usual.  I went and picked up a handful of leaves (since the area is also where we keep our pre-shredded leaves) and I felt something larger than the normal bugs and what have you leave my hand as I was picking up the leaves.  I just figured it was a lizard and went on my way moving some leaves and spreading mulch.  At one point, I realized that the leaf pile was moving...and it was something decidedly bigger than a lizard (insert graphic of Smaug waking from a long slumber under gold coins).  Then I noticed a tail of a snake heading under the newspapers I just laid out.

I did one of those Officer Brody moves - the move when he first sees Jaws after chumming the water, and walked back to the house to tell my husband that he had to come out and catch the snake I just found because I didn't want to step on it.

He followed me back out and I gingerly stepped over to where I last saw the snake, and then very carefully started lifting up the newspapers.  Only to not find the snake at all.  Shawn asked if I thought it was one of the venomous snakes (you would have figured he would have asked this BEFORE agreeing to come out to catch said snake - but also notice how he let me walk over to where I had just seen the snake before asking that question as well) - I said no, it had looked like some type of garden snake, like a racer of some kind.  Then he told me that it probably slithered away when I went into the house to get him and I should just continue on my merry way.

Needless to say, as soon as he left, I picked up another pile of leaves, and there was the snake.  It came out of it's hiding spot and immediately tried to get away from me as quickly as it could.  It was about a foot long, dark on top, lighter on the bottom, and most likely a Rough Earthsnake.  I'm at least assuming it was the same snake as before - but I suppose it could have been a different one.  I breathed a sigh of relief and went to pick up another pile of leaves.  Only to find a 3" snake who buried itself deeper in the leaf pile.

I pretty much decided to call it a day at that point. 

I'm happy there are snakes in my yard (and have even gone so far as to put out a saucer of water in the area for them), but at the same time, I think we need to work out some time-share deal so that I can go mess around in the area where the leaves are because I really need to start working on Bermuda Grass removal which is going to require moving the pile of leaves - and I really don't want the snakes to leave because I'm sure they're doing good things by just being around (or bad things if they're eating all my lizards).  At the very least it makes me feel like I'm doing something right in my yard.

But still! YAY! Snakes!