Snakes have been getting a bad rap, bad press, for many thousands of years. But mostly they are very useful creatures and I like them.
 
This species, known as Gopher Snake or sometimes Bull Snake, is not uncommon in my area, as rodents are all too plentiful. I am always happy to see one and if I see one basking in the middle of a road, I stop and herd it off to safety in the vegetation. It grieves me to find a dead one that has been run over, as I did a few weeks ago..
 
There is a truely beautiful Gopher Snake who I see from time to time around my house or sometimes inside the back porch or kitchen. I think he dens under the house. Undoubtedly he reduces the number of rats and mice that invade the house, and for those services I am grateful. But I cherish him for his beauty even more than for his services. I think of him as "my House-Snake"
"My House-Snake" was injured a while back, a periferal injury from a rodent trap, and until yesterday I didn't know for sure that he had survived. So I was delighted to see him in my kitchen yesterday morning, in an area where mice sometimes lurk.
I think of this snake as "my House-snake" but to be honnest I don't really know that the snake I see near the house from time to time is always the same individual, nor that "he" is really a male. (One does tend to think of snakes as male by default ; no need to discuss why.)
 
The line "a narrow fellow in the grass" is the opening line of verse by Emily Dickenson about snakes. I get the impression that the Belle of Amhurst was appreciative of the beauty of snakes but was also a bit afraid of them.