ah she-it

So, I did field work yesterday. I like field work, mostly because I get to go outside when it's all sunny. And as Ray at Bishop-Brogden says, "you gotta get your daily dose of Sunshine." So Kena and I are out doing our field work. I was wearing my cute boots the City bought me (we get ONE pair of field shoes per year that they'll buy us...they don't want us dropping stuff on our toes and breaking them, or getting bitten by snakes...or other such bad things that would require them to pay workman's comp). But I digress. So we went out and were doing our "take pictures of all the bridges in town" project. It's actually because FEMA makes us do it. But anyhow, we're out and about and we're down by the river on Shoal Creek. I go about and take my 2 requisite pictures and look around trying to find out if there are any trees in the creek that perhaps need to be removed or other such things. Then I see a turtle...and I LIKE turtles. So I decide to take a picture. CLICK. next thing I notice, there's a FREAKING HUGE SNAKE slithering right by the poor turtle. And immediatiately I think "Holy freaking Jebus!" quickly followed by Ray's admonishment of "If you see a snake, and you don't get a picture of it, how are we ever to believe that you saw a snake?" So I take a 2 pictures of the thing...I'll have to put up my picture later--the one below is from the Herps of Texas website...but anyhow, I saw a SNAKE!

As soon as we got back to the office I went about asking all the Texans what the poisonous snakes look like (the three common ones down here are Coral, Water Mocasin, and Cottonmouth), and they all told me that it wasn't poisonous, but then no one really knew what the snake was that I had a picture of. Finally today, Ross and I sat down and surfed the net until I found it. It's just a big rat snake....non-poisonous, non-agressive, constrictor. meh. But, I saw a SNAKE!