Mojave Jane

A July morning. The light is playing tricks over the Black Mountains, here in the photo (click it and make it bigger, so you can see the beautiful details!) and I have just fed the boys. Cat and I are filling up the water trough, and she begins stalking something. I look casually over, to see what unlucky lizard will be pummeled, and possibly gummed (she has no teeth) or which of the tall black carpenter ants have drawn her attention, but I see nothing. I finish filling up the water, and turn off the hose. Cat is still sneaking up on whatever it is, giving a thousand-yard stare, moving her limbs yet her head is completely motionless. I take a closer look, staring from her short perspective, but the line of sight goes under the truck and out to the desert, and still I see nothing. Then the fur along her spine stood up on end.

I looked and saw no animals of any kind, and she only does that when a dog or another cat is approaching... still I see nothing. Hmph. I go on about my business, grooming the boys while they munch their grass hay. It begins to sprinkle, and for five minutes we are all standing out in the rain. Except cat has taken shelter under the horse trailer, laughing at the rest of us. Happy ambles over to drink, then goes toward the container where they like to poop. Yes, horses are routine about their habits, especially where they poop. He sniffs the ground as he walks. And that's when I heard her.


Mojave Jane, is what I'm calling her. She is by far the most striking (I couldn't resist, although she never did strike) and most beautiful snake we have seen here so far. You may be able to tell, that her base color is a sage, almost iridescent green, and on her back are white-studded diamonds of slate brown. She moves with such grace, and when we got too close she gave us a two-shake warning, unlike the tchtchtchtchtch she gave the horse when he walked up to her.


She may be pregnant, and if so, we're pretty sure she is choosing to give her live birth session under our storage container. (We'd better look out about September, for foraging infants!) She crawled upon a brick to sun herself, and stayed there for a while. When it was time, she slinked underneath the container, and we watched until the last of her seven buttons were out of sight.