Snakes alive (and snakes dead), people's choice and bright shiny things.

People.
Gotta love 'em.
Thanks folks, for voting my Sumo Wrestling Toads the 'People's Choice' during their stay at Brookgreen Gardens as part of the National Sculpture Society's annual show (which is over now).
I am stupendously happy to have got your votes. I think that's a pretty big deal.
Yeah!

Twice in the space of a week I've had to jump out of my car to shoo a coachwhip snake off the road.
On one occasion I was in an awful hurry to get home due to certain biological emergencies that result from a fondness for green chiles on everything, washed down with copious amounts of strong coffee.
I'd been driving us home like a vampire hurtling to his coffin against the quickly rising sun, only with the prospect of a much messier outcome should I lose my race against time.

Almost home... rounding the last corner... what's that across the driveway?
Right in my way, a 4 foot long coachwhip snake dammit! And a beautiful shade of raw salmon pink to boot.

Beeping the horn won't help, they're deaf to airborne sounds.

And for some odd reason, they aren't scared of cars.
But when you hop out and they detect your human form they flail away like a mad thing.
Much like my attempts to get the keys in the door.

Then a few days later I saw another one across the road laying there without a care in the world about a block or two away.
So I hopped out and pranced around it, to see what it would do.
First they try to make a mad dash for the edge of the road, but they thrash so hard against the smooth asphalt that they slip and slide about instead of moving forwards.

So I danced past it and it turned at me and raised it's head with its mouth wide open.
Just until it figured it could zip past me and off through some rabbit bush and away.

Then I spied our 'pet' bull snake in the garden while I was looking for our weed spraying bottle.
He was patrolling among some large flower pots near the bbq grill.

I noticed he had particularly rich reddish brown blotches. Must have recently shed his skin.

He casually nosed around, and took up residence inside the bottom of the grill.


Besides that, I saw another Coachwhip snake right on the road outside our house one evening when we drove home from somewhere or other.
I hopped out, but sadly it was dead.

I was wondering if one of our neighbors might have killed it by running it over. There's only 5 other houses on our cul-de-sac, so it couldn't be too hard to narrow it down.
But it was kind of right on the road where we'd be after we've backed out of the driveway.
So now I'm plagued with the thought that I in-advertantly killed it, after saving it a couple of times.
Could have been some one else, but then again, could have been me.

Will I ever sleep again?

Probably.

Other than that I'm pondering just how super bright and shiny to do the patina on my tree frogs when they get cast.
I fancy taking a leap into the super bright arena for a change, since I think the subject matter could handle it.

No news regarding progress of my pieces, it's all a bit out of my hands for a little while 'till they come back from the foundry for finishing and patina.
But I think I'll be bugging Lee for a progress report this week...

My website, and Etsy store.