Snakes alive (but not for long), it must be Halloween!

Around Halloween last year I jumped out of the car to help a snake off the road.
Turned out to be a rattler, and I had nothing to help it with, and the road was busy, and it was right at the entrance to our local community college.
So in pretty short order it became snake jerky.

It was the first rattler I've seen around here, every other time I've escorted a snake off the road it has been a harmless, non venomous bullsnake, which does do a remarkable rattlesnake impersonation.
Here is a video of a very large bullsnake I found on YouTube. It's demonstrating its hissing vibrato, and head flattening routine...



Yesterday I found my neighbor in the process of using a spade to hack off the head of a pretty small rattler (other neighbors have done the same thing to at least one bullsnake I'm aware of: a case of mistaken identity).

Well, in this instance it was definitely a rattler. So guilty as charged I suppose. Maybe a foot long, with 2 little buttons on its tail.

Even with its head off, it was wriggling all over and its mouth was opening and snapping shut repeatedly.

I reckon if I'd found it I would have got it in a plastic bin and let it go, away from houses somewhere, which is what I did with a baby hognosed snake a while back.

Anyhow, a little unsettling knowing while Meridee's gardening there could be more hiding out amongst the hollyhocks...

Besides that, here's the latest Kickstarter project news... I got double the funding I need to get my Winged Angel Mice up and running (or flying), so THANKS BACKERS!!!

They're still available for pre-order if you'd like to get in touch via email etc, although once they're in galleries it will be retail price only. I'm expecting that to be around Feb sometime.

Have a spooktastic evening!


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Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

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Winners of snake contest...!

That's right, winners as in plural!

It was actually a pretty big snake.
Since people always over estimate snakes they've actually seen, I guessed a conservative 5 feet to myself.
I couldn't help notice how its pattern changed from anaconda like blobs at the back end, to more typical bull snake patterns at the front.

So how do you measure a snake without killing it?

Last weekend I went back with printouts of my snake pics, a long cord, and an extending tape measure (25 feet long, just to be sure!).
After a little while finding the exact spot, I laid out the cord (which used to work our blinds before they broke and needed fixing), adjusted its wiggles to match the snake's position exactly, picked up the string and measured it.

It was a bit tricky finding the exact placement at first, but I noticed as I was matching tufts of grass and stones that there was a groove worn in the ground, so either the weight of the snake did that in one pass, or it's a regular route it takes.


The string was 6ft 3inches, or 75 inches.

So I've been saving emails and making notes on who was within 2 inches either way, since I reckon I might have not been super exact.

I had guesses ranging from less than three feet to more than nine!
Quite a spread.
What really amazed me was that not only did someone nail my exact measurement, but a whole bunch of people guessed within my self imposed margin for error.

Sara J Ingle got it on the nose!
Congratulations Sara, you've won a little bronze turtle!
Best email me your address (no impostors please!).

But I felt it wouldn't be fair not to give the others who were so close a shot at a prize too, so I assigned each either odd or even status, rolled a dice to eliminate half so the numbers were small enough for a single dice roll, re-numbered everyone who was left and bingo, number four it was.

So Norma Evans is the bonus winner!
She emailed her guess of 75.5 inches.
I'll send a bonus critter your way Norma (might be a tiny bunny!)

Thanks to everyone for your guesses, that was fun!

I'll no doubt do something similar sometime, so stay tuned (or just sign up for monthly email alerts. At the start of each month you'll get the last month's posts, and also any contest alerts. There's a link in the sidebar if you want to sign up).


Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Contest: Guess the length of the snake and win a bronze turtle!

I said this week's post would be more fun!

I ran into Marcel, a photographer friend out running with his dogs around our local trail the other day.
Well I suppose to be more accurate he ran into me, since I was walking!
He'd recently been round our place to photograph my tree frog (the real one) to use as part of one of his always interesting compositions....

Cutle little critter, eh?

Well, after Marcel ran off in his direction and I walked off in mine, I found this rather handsome beast!
Marcel must have run right past it!

A fine looking specimen of a bull snake, I'm sure you'll agree!

And whoever can guess closest to how long the snake is will win a tiny bronze turtle.
The bigger one, since I'm all out of the smallest one right now!

Not a very spectacular prize, but then again, not a very involved contest! Just take a wild guess and either leave it as a comment on this post or email it to me.

Closing date is my next blog post when I'll announce the winner, whenever that is (most likely the weekend of May 15/16), so if this is still the most recent post, have a go!

I'm adding this after only a day since I've had such a great response already: at this rate it's entirely possible by the close of this contest multiple people could guess it right, in which case I'll assign them numbers and roll a dice to determine the winner.

Only one guess per person though, so don't email every size by the inch between 1 and 100 feet!

I'll take these snake pics with me back to the spot and lay out a string to match its position, then measure it.

Good luck!


Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Update on ....of...... Galleries, last I heard is that he's not responding to phone calls and emails from the collection folks who are trying to recover my share of his selling some bronzes of mine. (Edit-issue resolved after 1 yr thanks to Goldman, Evans and Trammell)

Tiny turtle wins award, the show is installed, and not just my Sprightly has to deal with snakes!

I'm ecstatic to say a trip to the mail boxes was rewarded with a note saying my tiny turtle won second place for sculpture in this year's miniatures show held by the Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers society of Washington DC!
The show runs from Nov 22 thru Jan 2.

I popped into Manitou Galleries today and they'd just finished getting everything in place for next Friday's reception. They just have to get the lights all pointing in the right directions and they're all done.

I'm really looking forward to hanging around a room full of people enjoying my handiwork for the evening and answering lots of questions.
That's my hope; of course my secret fear is spending the evening all alone with my work in a big empty gallery to the sound of crickets chirping.
But don't tell that to anyone!
If you read my blog and live nearby, come and say 'hi'!
I'd love to meet you.

Thanks Bobbi for the pic you sent of your Sprightly mouse standing his ground against his mortal foe, the dreaded bull snake.
Mice dread them anyway, I find them quite appealing.

I just completely re-vamped my tree frog's home.
I'll get some pics up maybe next week. It's a froggy penthouse now.

SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
My Etsy store, CritterVille.

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.