From the time I was 4 years old I was immersed in various biology and wildlife media, from National Geographic to wildnerness TV programming. If asked what I was going to do some day, I replied "I'm gonna be a snake man!" Well, I guess I am. I'm constantly chasing snakes through the grass and brush, a bit slower these days, but still give chase none the less. Often times someone will see me running like a drunk man through the woods and ask what's he doin, and someone will always point out that "oh, thats Smith after another snake." Venomous or harmless, I'll chase them all, however, I'll scream like a little girl if any spider approaches me. It seems my interest in snakes has passed to my son as you can see in the pic of 2 large western rat snakes that we caught in the peacock pen. In 5th period PreAP Biology Friday I took the class on an outing to catch insects for a Rough Earth Snake that I caught last weekend. Suddenly I here, Mr. Smith...Mr. Smith a snake!! Then I hear I "I can catch it" We are at a creek behind the school mind you. I yell "No, don't touch it" a rather courageous voice responded "but, it's just a baby!" The young men indeed want to impress their snake man biology teacher. Now, I've told these youth about the potential dangers of juvenile venomous snakes. Thank goodness they lost it in the grass. I arrived at their location and located the snake. I snagged it up, identifying it as a harmless Western Ribbon Snake. The class is very proud of the speciman and named him Proximus, for his scientific name of Thamnophis proximus. I intend to cohabitate proximus and the rough earth snake in a terrarium in our class now. The more stuff I can pack in my room the quicker folks will want to get to class and check it out, so maybe I can minimize tardies ;)
On a different note, the Life Science Pedagogy test wasn't bad this morning. It stunk to take it at 7:30AM, and after writing 7 pages of response in one hour, my right hand is still in pretty bad shape.
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