We had an orchard in Central California. That meant rodents which led to snakes. It seemed every year tramping through high dry grass, I would step on a snake. always seemed to be a nice fat one, 3-4 feet long; always stepped on the middle of it where I couldn't see head or tail. Almost always it was a gopher snake which shakes it's tail in dry grass to sound like a rattlesnake, a nice touch for that moment when you step on them. Coloration of the body looks like a rattlesnake. after a heart stopping second I found the head or tail, knew I was safe.
We had sandy soil and the snakes and toads and frogs, etc would burrow under things laying on the soil. The orchard got divided in to three sections after my grandmother was stricken with a fatal tumor (a benign non cancerous tumor on her liver). My uncle sold his orchard a couple years later, my mother still has her acres, but no longer producing. When my grandfather passed I had to get the house in condition for a sale after renting it for several years. One big thing was to clean up the yard and outbuildings of debris and then plough under the weeds. One big piece was our original almond 'boat' which had been abandoned to rot on the edge of the property. When I gave it a tug with the tractor; is came apart but I was able to drag the wood pieces over to the burn pit. That left the galvanized sheet metal bottom laying on the ground. I cautiously lifted the sheet metal and as expected there was a big gopher snake under it. I was going to immediately plough the ground so I picked up a stick to get it out of the way. Except I picked up another snake, all three of us cleared the scene quickly.
