At about 8 o'clock in the morning, I recieved a somewhat frantic call from my neighbor across the street saying that he had a "snake in a bucket". So I quickly got dressed and ran over there to check it out, and indeed, he had scooped up a beautiful little Texas Rat Snake. Much to my neighbor's surprise, I reached in and picked the snake up -- which quicky let me know that he was unhappy by biting me in the arm. With such a small snake as this (measured at 24" (2 feet)), the bite was very weak and didn't even scratch my skin. It was nothing more than cute, althouh my neighbor thought differently I'm sure...

I photographed the snake a couple of times on the ground and in my hands, then I put him in an old pillowcase and took him to some woods by my house. I hiked about 1/4 of a mile into the trees, and let him go on a big chinese tallow where he got his picture taken a few more times.

After being let go, the snake quickly scaled the tree and climbed higher and higher, until finally dissapearing into the upper canopy.