Over the past week we’ve had two snakes turn up in our yard. The first was a big one. A Black Rat Snake about 4 feet long. Here it is crawling across the top of one of our windows–a 5 ft-wide window! It just shimmied up the side of the house.

Here it is trying to climb another part of our house:

Check out the pattern!

The second snake was found in our pool as we were draining/cleaning it. I believe it is a Plain-bellied Water Snake.

I can’t help but wonder if that big one was the one that left the 4-foot long skin shedding a couple years ago. And as for the little one… he was so cute I wanted to hold him, but didn’t have the courage.