Today when I was digging there was a visitor in the kiln hole hoping to catch a frog. I made too much noise and he decided to beat it, but I managed to get a couple of pictures. I think he’s a Yamakakashi, which is one of the two venomous snakes we have around here. These guys are not too much trouble though, being fairly shy and not aggressive. People didn’t even realize they were venomous until quite recently because their venom teeth are toward the rear of their mouth, and rarely envenom people, even when they bite. There are exceptions though, about 15 years ago a 13 year old boy was killed by one of these snakes, I believe he was playing with it and it bit him on a small part of his body like the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, or something like that. I just leave them alone and try to keep my studio door closed well. They probably take care of the rodent population pretty well.

 In other news, the hand excavation portion of the hole is finally DONE. There will probably be some tweaking to do, but for now it is DONE. Here it is in all its glory: