Update on all things great and small...

Had the camera in hand this morning and caught the aforementioned black ratsnake out sunning. As you can see, it's very opaque (about to shed) and so appears to be more wary of things around him. Enjoy the view!

In the well house...

Everyone who lives in the country says they have a big "blacksnake" (i.e. black ratsnake) in their well house. We really do!!! We also have at least one living under our shop building. We tried to get his picture this morning, but as soon as one gets the camera out, the snake disappears. Well, he stayed until we tried to focus, and then...split!  The only pic I got was with my finger in the way of the lens.

This is one of the joys of living in the country...having herps at your fingertips. We have "lost" a couple non-venomous snakes in the past, and they've always ended up under the shop building. It's kinda funny to be walking around the perimeter and find a corn snake, or a sinaloan milksnake crawling around. These were repatriated to what we considered to be more suitable habitat...a cage within the building. Might not be considered as natural, but those snakes don't belong naturally in the wild, in SW Missouri.

Getting back to the black rat snake in the well house, it's going to make the squirrel, who's now living there, rather uncomfortable when the snake comes back out of hibernation.

An Introduction to the Finley Valley Serpentarium

We're new to the world of "blog" but we're not new to the world of reptiles. We'd like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves to those who do not know us, and to reacquaint ourselves with those who do. We've been living in the Ozarks for over 30 years, and have owned reptiles for almost twice as long, if you combine our experiences. I should probably explain that "we" includes myself and my wife. Since we've been together for over 33 years, it shows that you can combine herps and homelife successfully.

We keep all varieties of reptiles, including turtles, tortoises, and lizards, and we know our amphibians, however, we do not keep any. Many of our animals have been with us for years, and many, sometimes too many, have been rescues from people who are not "herpers" or have lost interest due to objections from other family members. (That is a topic in itself.) We do breed some animals, but have not elected to keep up with all the trends as we enjoy particular animals, but not necessarily what is in fashion.

Hopefully, we'll post more comments, ideas and pictures from our place in the near future. And of course, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to join in!

Yours truly,

Dennis & Maryann