Snake sighting, desert to swamp

On Thursday nights we take out the trash. As I was pulling the bag out of the can in the garage, I was startled by movement I saw out of the corner of my eye. On the top edge of the open garage door was a long black racer snake. He was weaving in and out of the supports having a grand old time. I didn’t know if he had been in the garage for awhile or if he just hopped up there since we got home. Either way he had to be returned to the outdoors. So I looked around for a good snake removal tool and decided to enlist a mop. As I pushed him along he dropped off the garage door onto the hard concrete floor. I felt bad cause I didn’t want to cause any harm to him, just get him out. He seemed ok but he slithered under the shelves in the garage. I kept prodding him forward with the mop which he had taken a dislike to. He coiled and struck at the mop repeatedly. Eventually I got him outside and apologized for any harm I caused him.

Our property has been very very dry. You can tell from this pic how brown the grass was. Even though I try to hit it regularly with the tractor sprinkler, no rain for over a month takes it’s toll. However the past few days we have gotten dumped on. Our property has seen over 6 inches of rain during that time period. So we went from being a sand bowl to a swamp, with some standing water at various spots already. The areas where we brought in fill have held up well and performed as we hoped they would. The plants and grass are very happy with the recent deluge, the only negative is the standing water will probably initiate this years mosquito season. Time to get the propane tank refilled for the mosquito trap.