OMG, Snakes!

Your memory is accurate and your snake is an angel.

Using worn (but not filthy) clothes in your snake's enclosure is an old trick to help them acclimate to your smell. It might not be a real thing to help your snake recognize you, but it definitely won't hurt anybody. Even if all it does is boost your handling confidence, that's something!

Also snakes benefit from having a variety of textures and new things to explore. As long as there's no perfume or scented fabric softener on your clothes, and you're okay maybe never wearing that garment again if it gets pooped on, it's great enrichment.

Thanks to everyone who voted for manzanita! I think the result came out pretty great! I'm probably going to thin that busier branch a bit more. I already snapped a lot of twigs but I think it's still too bushy.

Also, I has a floor! (still littered with twigs)

Next I'm going to be re-routing a floor vent through a cage stand and then I can start bringing in cages!

My light bulbs are here! And now I need your help with the final outcome. Here's the inspiration from Pinterest:

Here's an example I slapped together quickly to make sure the light is structurally sound. It's definitely attached firmly and tangling up branches won't compromise anything.

Now the poll:

Oh, bother.

I pulled up the carpet pad and the (at least) fourty-year-old plywood underlayment in a few spots was crumbling apart like stale Wheatabix.

I cut out the rotten sections and I'll be patching with new plywood just to make sure the floor is level before I put down a cork vapor barrier/padded second underlayment and then my fake slate flooring.

There's also hardwood subfloor under the plywood. Good to know, I guess.

I got this really cool light fixture for the snake room and I have a (hopefully) really cool plan for it, but when I ordered it I didn't realize that the ceiling attachment brackets on each light, which I am not planning to use, were not removable. Well... not easily anyway. I never let a little manufacturer intent stop me from having a good time.

I had to disassemble the entire socket on each strand to get them off and then reassemble each one. I don't have bulbs yet so for now it's just a flying spaghetti monster impressionist art installation.

If you've never wallpapered a ceiling,

I don't recommend it.

Paint colors for the Snake Room have been chosen and swatched.

It's three shades of gray as a joke because someone told @fractiousrvt that anerythristic morphs like Anery and Charcoal are boring, which is an objectively incorrect opinion.

Thank you!! I'll say that, in my area at least, there were a lot of options that fit our budget and style. I wanted an older house on a larger lot, something with a bit of quirk but well-maintained, and close to work and school. I also wanted a place that was ready for personal touches and small projects but functionally liveable.

It was nerve-wracking, for sure, and there were multiple days where I was pretty prepared to throw in the towel and resign myself to renting forever. But we had a really good agent and a fully-vested pre-approval, so when the right house popped up we were able to pounce on it.

I hope your search is equally as fruitful and hopefully a lot less stressful.

So, okay, a big part of the reason I've been so absent of late is that I've been in the throes of moving.

There was a whole ordeal with my landlord trying to illegally terminate my lease at the beginning of the year, that lining up with being ready to buy a place anyway, finding a really great house almost immediately, having an offer accepted, then finding out it had some secret catastrophic issues, and then having to back out of a contract and start the process all over again. It was stressful. It's behind us. We found a better spot. Cute neighborhood, big yard, and most importantly no severe issues that might render a house unliveable and uninsurable. Also it has grounded outlets, which isn't a thing I was previously aware I should be looking for because we are currently living in the year 2025, but I guess folks out here have been getting by with nothing but two-prongs and making the best of it. More (ungrounded) power to them, I guess.

Anyway for the last couple of weekends I've been getting things set up at the new place and preparing to move into my new Snake Room. Here's what it looked like on Day 0:

My plan is to pull carpet, yeet the closet doors and turn the closet into a desk/ship station/incubator space, and paint before bringing in cages. I'll share my progress and maybe do a little crowdsourcing for ideas.

This is being juggled with work and school and it's been a challenge but, like, also a huge relief. I'm very much a high-site-fidelity creature and moving from impermanent dwelling to impermanent dwelling has been a huge mental health burden.

For the first time in almost 20 years, I'm home.

Hey friend!

Corn snakes have three pigments that they express: melanin (black), xanthin (yellow), and erythrin (red), which you've pointed out!

All corn snake color morphs, including wild type coloration, are based on the expression and/or mutation in the expression of these three pigments.

Babies often hatch a bit redder and their colors deepen as they age. We call this "baby red" and it usually settles to brick red or rich brown by the second or third shed.

It's also common for some red and pink morphs to start to express as the snake matures. Red Factor, Redcoat, Peach, Hypo, and Bloodred morphs tend to start out looking kinda "normal-ish" and get redder/brighter orangey with age. Some keepers have even suggested that some reds are sexually dimorphic, with males displaying more red/pink tones than females and displaying brighter colors during breeding season.

The carotenoids that show up over time from food are often expressed around the jaw/neck. These can still be masked by some morphs that block both erythrin and xanthin expression, like the Charcoal (anery B) morph. Anery (anery A) will block erythrin but not xanthin, so Anery morphs often still get yellow around the jaw and throat. Genetic morph red pigment expression will generally be across the entire body and possibly also fill in the white belly checkers in some cases.

There are a lot of scholarly articles on the subject as corn snakes are a model species for snakes in genetics, so if you're searching you might want to use their scientific name: Pantherophis guttatus. This should generate more results than the common name if you're using Google Scholar or ResearchGate.

I hope this is a helpful primer and I wish you better luck with future searches for more information!

Okay this isn't a snake, one of my pets, or even snake-adjacent but it's pretty awesome. Two of my college professors are fundraising for their California Ringtail Project.

Kristyn Schulte does genetic research on ringtails and David Wyatt is one of the leading experts on ringtail conservation. Kristyn gives some of the best presentations on wildlife that I've ever seen and is a disability advocate in field research. Dave is a true naturalist who makes a student and friend out of everyone he meets. I've been lucky enough to spend time in the field with these folks and their dedication to biodiversity and conservation, especially in these uncertain times, is an inspiration.

These are good people doing important work, and they made some really adorable merch to help fund their research. If you like cute tee shirts and supporting wildlife conservation, please consider grabbing a shirt or just spreading the word!

Iravati x chinotto orange

Cookie Vanilla in the almond tree

It's almond blossom season again.