I came upon something black blocking the road yesterday evening while driving down into the hollow.

Unsure of what I was seeing I disembarked the vehicle and proceeded on foot.

A long skinny strip of black reptile. Up close it held up its pretty white chin and studiously ignored me. I know several of the snakes closer to the house, but not this one. I suppose it’s obviously a western rat snake, but it’s so squiggly and skinny that I felt unsure. For years, I’d see a six footer in the bottom of the hollow, but it was a thick, heavy bodied thing. Perhaps this one is just much younger? It never flinched as I stood inches from it nor when I drove towards it and carefully around it.