A few days ago I encountered this handsome black rat snake on the rocks outside the little greenhouse. I noticed how shiny he/she was and looked for a recently shed skin in the greenhouse -- always a favorite place for blacksnakes to perform this maneuver. No skin and I forgot about it . . .
. . . till yesterday when I was heading for the potting bench behind the house and put my hand on one of the uprights of the gate.
Yikes! That WAH! moment that kicks in as the monkey brain screams SNAKESNAKESNAKE! Then the reasoning part of my mind took over in and I enjoyed the beauty of the shed skin, noting how the tail was hooked around the latch so the snake could wriggle free of the old skin like a fat lady peeling off her Spanx.
Only a lot more elegantly.