Snakes and Lizards go hand and hand

So today I am in the garden photographing the beautiful colors of the May flowers. We wondered why we had saved two lizards out of the pool in the last 24 hours. And, I suppose I need a taker for the most likely infertile dove egg I have sitting in a nest without a mother hoping for a miracle. Here I am browsing my photos in photoshop and prepping one of the prettier ones for upload and much to my surprise I see a lizard which I didn't see when taking. A big boy with his dinosaur scale on his back overlooking his domain from his flower pot rim. But, then something else catches my eye really taking me by surprise. A black thick tubing of some sort. So I zoom in because I don't remember anything like that in my garden and sure enough it is a black snake. A big one too! I was standing practically right on top of it with my camera and never even noticed! As much as they scare me it is without reason because they are harmless except for when the nearly cause me a heart attack (one day one was under my chair cushion on the porch)! We usually try to scare them out of the yard by me screaming and my husband chasing them with a shovel but this year I think we will leave them alone. We just love our little lizards but I think we have too many and they haven't even had their spring babies yet! My blogger layout would not accomodate my pic large enough for you to see the snake well so I zoomed in. The top is a shot of the almost full image, then the snake zoomed (head in purple pentas) which is to the right of the full image, then the lizard on the left zoomed.