Harbinger of Spring?

 It's now mid-winter, right?  What was this Sharp-tailed Snake, Contia tenuis, doing crawling along the pavement outside my office at FRC?  I rescued it from foot traffic, leaf blowers, and people who think the only good snake is a dead snake.  I'm sure there are some of those people around.  Before I released it to a safe hiding place, hoping it would stay there, I hailed a student office assistant, who is generally nervous around snakes, to photograph it for me.  Thank you Rebecca!

Here's the scene of the discovery.  By the way, this is an adult snake!  They average around 12" long as adults, and rarely reach 18".  This one appeared to be around 11" when stretched out straight.  It was still rather cold because it moved very slowly and didn't try to poke me with its sharp tail.
This happy interlude in my office work has got me fired up about resurrecting my blogging activity.  Still overdue are flower photos I got on last week's drive to Chico.