Please allow me to introduce myself!

[Swayback]

My mom blames my dad...there's a famous family pic of me dangling a big earthwork and grinning ear to ear! I was maybe 2...
Dad says I got it from moms brother...he was scaring my mom with pythons back in the 60's!
Who Evers "fualt" it is...Thank you!

I've had the creeper crawler gene since before I can remember...literally my first memory is of lookin at crawl fish in a stream!

Herp Highlight reel:
Around 4th grade I got into a fist fight with guy that was tellin people that snakes can kill you with their poisonous tongue sting (wtf) AND their deadly tail stinger too! He even had a teacher in his side!
This had nothing to do with hatchling corn snake in my pocket...😈
I even managed to get KICKED OUT of Boy Scouts for a similar offense...
they made me sit on the porch til my folks came, they asked us not to return...how sads that!?!

Around that time, my dad and I constructed a large outdoor snake cage, much to moms delight! Now no more snakes on the loose!
It was too big to accurately grab a snake in it, but sure enough if you'd reach in, you'd come out with a snake! Or 2 or 5...gripped tightly by their mouth...probably not the best husbandry there huh...live and learn! Poor snakeys...

My crownin achievment as a child was landing a gravid northern water snake...I just thought she was huge...but wouldn't eat...their always super feisty anyway...a month later I come home from school and she's hollowed out but there's 5 little copy's of her whippin around the cage!
I managed to nurse 2 of the 5 thru...mama wouldn't feed so I released her... The first baby tackled an earthworm that was as big as he was and suffocated...2 never fed...2 made it thru the winter!

That winter I realized that wild snakes belong in the wild!
The 2 survivours were released that spring!

Flash forward to present...Now the famous family pic is me, at 30...in my boxers at 9am...covered in creek scum...with that same beaming smile, as a 4' water snake writhes about in my grasp...in 30 years I haven't come too far I guess...course the first pic was at the farm...this one is in my suburban backyard...and you can't see my horified neighbor gasping as I scramble Down the bank and back up...in that condition at 9am on a Sunday morning...oh well! 😱

As an adult I've never attempted to kee a wild snake more than a week or so before I cut it loose in a better area...I like to think I've become a local Steve Irwin of sorts...The list of people that calls me for herp removal is ever growing...as in the ever perpetuated ignorance that surrounds the magnificent, benevolent creatures!
I always telling one of these fools around here "you better not mess with my snakes! Or your messin with me!" I'm 6'2, 190...big n hairy...kinna scary...

Well my 11 year old has taken an interest!
Now thanks to him...
I BOUGHT a BP!
First snake I've ever bought!
Ive never allowed myself one, you see, long ago I recognized the hoarding gene in my family, it's expressed in me too! But I don't hoard...I collect!
A few houseplants...and I turned into a tropical plant collector...a few succulents...I became a cactus collector...
I never allowed myself to buy a snake for fear of where it might go!

Sooo...here I am...spending hours a day readin up on balls...they've never really interested me before...too small...too common...now with 2 kids and a mortgage...those traits don't seem so bad...and balls are far from plain these days!

To be honest, my heads spinning...trying to figure where and how this hobby will fit in...I'm trying to temper myself, I know better than to go all out...I'm starting small...and gunna see where things go...and try not to go overboard!
Its a nice romantic thought...ill breed bp morphs! I can just have all the snakes I want! They'll pay for emselves!
But I know it ain't so easy! Now is it?
But i also know that nothing is more rewarding than doing what you love!

so for now I'm reading a lot! Learning a lot and Dreaming too much!

I hope you guys can help me with the learning curve, and will bring into the fold...a lot of you sure know your stuff!

Im sure many of you have similar stories, and are living my dream, I bet it was your dream too!

I know I get long winded...if you read this autobiography, then thank you!

i look forward to whats no doubt going to be an interesting journey...hopefully one that leads me to clutches of little multicolored multi patterned beauties!