This isn't really a viper of course. It's a little snake I ran over with my riding lawn mower while cutting the eastern field. I've always had a deep and persistent interest and fascination with natural science, biology, genetics (before the modern science of genetics really developed), micro-biology, bio-chemistry and medicine.
Because of this certain animals and their capabilities have always fascinated me, including snakes and lizards (especially as regards their biological energy systems). Anyway I didn't see this poor snake until well after my mower had made meat of it. It must have been in the process of fleeing with it's head up as it glided, because if you look carefully you can see that the head was sheared clean off by the mower blade but the lower jaw is still attached. It was just too young and inexperienced to understand the danger and apparently tried running directly away from the mower instead of moving off at an angle. In any case I just happened to see the remains as I made the next pass through the field. I stopped immediately once I saw the coiling body and dismounted to examine it but it was already mortally wounded.
I took it back to the front yard of the house, the northern yard, where it continued to coil for maybe three or four minutes before finally dying completely. It even coiled around my finger a couple of times in that span. So I put it down and took the following two shots with my digital camera. It coiled twice more while I was making the shots.
Part of the old stone wall to the south of the house where our black snake, King, used to live. I haven't seen King in some months now so he has either moved on to greener pastures or was scared off by my two dogs, my Great Bernard and my Great Dane.
In the future I intend to post images to the Missal with greater regularity. These will include digital and other images of subjects in nature, human subjects, inanimate objects, studies of images I use as sketch subjects, cross linked images to my art portfolio and even images from my travels, assignments, operations and Vadding expeditions, when appropriate, and it is not a violation of confidentiality.
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