When Trailer said we have garter snakes, he meant it. There is an area an hour outside our city that is worlds famous( has been in National Geographic and Discovery channel) for it`s garter snakes. There is a pit there that the snakes have been coming to for generations to hybernate. They form into large balls to keep warm as it gets REAL cold up here.In the spring when they come out of hybernation and look for a mate, they sun themselves on rocks to get warm again.
You can go down into these pits and literally be knee deep in these snakes. If you time it right, you can see tens of thousands of them, maybe up to a 100,000. School kids and scientists come from all over to study them. They are completely harmless. A lot of them will loose their lives trying too cross the local highways in search of food when they leave the pits or to the many predators that feed on them. Ever tried picking up a ball of live snakes?[]

Ron