Today's Reptile Shows

I just got back from doing two shows at Deep Wood Elementary School in Austin. One tortoise, one gecko, eight snakes and over 400 kids...lots of fun!

One crazy logistic I had to overcome: the temperature at our house was in the twenties this morning, which isn't great for cold-blooded creatures. So I bagged and boxed all the snakes and put everything into one giant Rubbermaid box, put Titus the tortoise on top in a laundry basket covered with towels and brought them all out to the truck which I had warmed up earlier. Once at the school I made a beeline to the building to minimize the animals' exposure. Problem solved.

There were two new snakes on the lineup for today's shows: a San Diego gopher snake and an albino Honduran milk snake that I just hatched late last year. And Smaug, the carpet python, was his usual self...eight feet of jittery muscle. Today he got nervous during the second show and firmly locked his lower coils around my left leg while waving his front half around while I struggled to support him somewhere in the middle. We were a great spectacle, I'm sure, as I trudged around the room.

Thanks to the teachers, staff and PTO of Deep Wood for having me and my scaly friends!