This was me a couple of weeks ago at work with shovel in hand, cleaning out the pit of a containment basin so the liner could be cut out and repaired and a new sump pump installed. Needless to say, as you can see, it was a messy undertaking.

The water and muck, all the decomposing leaves, and such, came halfway up to the middle of my calves, but I did have my high-water boots on so I was good-to-go. And I was thankful that I had the boots on, for lo and behold, in one of the shovel fulls we discovered a li’l surprise!

Surrrrr-priiiiiiise!!!!

On second look, though, I realized the boots weren’t needed to protect me, for this li’l critter was of no danger at all. It was a harmless garden/garter snake, or such. And don’t be deceived by the photo; it’s misleading; this tiny thing was not even as big around as my little finger and no more than 6-8 inches in length. I actually felt bad that I had disturbed him because he had apparently burrowed in for a long winter’s nap. And as you can see, he was a little miffed at me and showed a wee bit of anger at being woke up.

Dont mess with me…….HISSSSSSSS!

But us being the nature and animal lovers we are, we took no offense at his umbrage. We managed to capture him in a jar and released him in the surrounding woods, where he scurried off in a heartbeat to seek new shelter. And who knows? We may see him again come spring. He will, however, not be a baby then, so I sure hope he doesn’t decide to get even with us for displacing him from his comfortable nest.