Making friends with snakes

In the last week, I've had to make friends with two types of snakes...the professional kind and the garden kind. The snakes that had come out of hibernation to show up on my patio a few weeks back are back, thank god not in big intertwining masses like before, which I guess is how they spend the winter, all cuddled up with each other keeping themselves warm. Which means the snakes I saw a few weeks back must have just come out of their winter homes.

We called about every pest control phone in the book and searched on every web site known to man, and here's what we found out:

• The ideal conditions for these garden snakes include: flat rocks so that they can sunbathe (hmmm...check), a pond so that they can take a swim every once in a while (check), food for pets (check check) lots of nooks and crannies so that they can hide (double check). Hmmm....I wonder why the previous owners didn't mention a word about garden snakes...
• There are no poisonous snakes in Cincinnati (phew). While I heard that from several "experts" throughout the course of the weekend a co-worker of mine told me today his mother-in-law got bitten by a "copperhead" not too long ago. At least I'm pretty certain what I have in my garden aren't copperheads or otherwise I would have moved back to our old condo by now!
• They come out during this time when it first starts to get warm and then apparently they disappear a few weeks later. I guess they don't technically disappear, they're still THERE hiding under all those nooks and crannies that make such great homes for them, but they just don't come out to be seen (I'm fine with that).
• They actually do more good than harm. The web site where we read this said they recommended we happily co-exist with the snakes as long as they didn't get inside the house. I'm glad they felt the need to caveat that because if they asked me to co-exist with them even inside the house, that's where I draw the line. I can just imagine Gabi trying to play with the snakes as if nothing was wrong.
• Cats can actually get rid of snakes -- but I am willing to bet my life that Borges is either too lazy or too scared or too "high class" to do anything to help us out. So I might have to get an outdoor cat that'll have the "street smarts" to complement Borges' beauty (and uselessness when it comes to chasing animals away).
• The funniest web sites were the ones that were all protective about the snakes. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge anti-animal cruelty supporter, but that's when it comes to fuzzy, cute pets. Not slithery things like the snakes. They can vanish from the face of the earth for all I care.
• I talked to my next door neighbor Gail after coming back from a morning walk with Gabi and asked her if she had the same little issue. She said everyone in the neighborhood does, so that make me feel a teensy-bit better that it's not just my house that's more attractive to them than every other house on the street!
  

The picture above was taken at the "WELCOME" sign in front of our house, I thought it was really funny, I guess it was my way of saying welcome to the snakes. Or maybe they were saying to me welcome to our garden, won't you join us for sunbathing?

As for the professional kind, ironically the snakes at work have actually gone into hibernation with the beginning of the spring, but we'll see how long they remain in hiding, I have a feeling it will be a lot less time than a full season...