My grandmother (on my dad’s side) disliked snakes so much that she made my grandfather thumb through her magazines and tear out any pictures of snakes before she would read them.  I always thought this was completely ridiculous, up until she died and I saw how bereft my grandfather was without her.  After that, tearing pictures of snakes out of magazines for one’s beloved seemed to be one of the most romantic gestures in the universe.  (Cue “Beloved Wife” by Natalie Merchant.)

I’m not sure how Grammie would have felt about the VEB, because he has the snake mojo something fierce.  He finds them wherever he goes, including sidewinders in Death Valley and rattlers in Bryce Canyon.  Happily here at home it’s just common garter snakes, which are always slithering across and along hiking trails.  The one we saw the other day at the top of Noon Hill was one of the larger ones we’ve seen.  It had just had lunch, as evidenced by it’s rather swollen midsection in the third photo: