Some new pics of Camo

Here are some new pictures I took of Camo (short for Camouflage) this past weekend. He's almost 2 years old now and he is a possible DH Sharp Snow. He's turned into such a mellow-yellow dude, I'm glad I held onto him!

A picture of his "soul patch":


The faded saddles:


A macro shot:

More pictures of him can be found in his photo gallery.

5 Months?!?!

Time really DOES fly when you are having fun! It's been almost 5 months since the litter on March 11th, and I FINALLY found the time to take pictures of all 27 babies. Between enjoying the summer, training for another marathon, and taking care of the "new kids", I just couldn't find the time.


I think that I have finally figured out how to get good shots with the photo tent that I bought a while back. I used a black background for the albinos, and a white background for the possible double hets and anerys. The black background really helped the albinos stand out a little better. I also used a 20 dollar bill in some pictures to help potential customers determine their size and color. 900 pictures later (all in the same day and with the same lighting setup), I was finally done, lol. You can view the pictures of the babies here, and there are more pics for each in their photo gallery.


There's definitely a wide variety in this litter in color and patterns. Even the possible double hets have very different looks. It was tough deciding which ones to keep as my holdbacks. There are two great looking anerys that I just can't make up my mind on which one of them to keep, so I decided to keep them both for the time being....I'll figure it out when they get a little older :)!.


Decisions, decisions.....














I'm leaning towards the second one...
I hope you all are having a great summer - I know I am!

Snow White?

OK, maybe I'm just anal, but I had the same issues with "Snow White" as "Whitesnake" - I just couldn't get good accurate pictures of her indoors. I feel it's important to accurately represent your animals, especially as people and potential customers are always wanting to see what they look like "now". I have a photo tent and indoor photography lights, which I have used once, but I really need to figure out the camera settings to capture quality and color-accurate pictures.

She is now 11 months old, and her tail has now turned a purple/lavender color. Her body is still a very off-white/faint yellow color - much different than Whitesnake. Whitesnake had turned yellow within 2 months of being born, and he lost his purple/lavender tail color by the time he was 8 months old. Maybe she is just a late bloomer, or maybe like Sharp albino's there are different "shades"...only time (and more Sharp Snow's) will tell....

I put both of them together for a series of shots to compare the colors between the two. You can see more pictures of her, as well as her and Whitesnake together here.

Well, it's about freakin' time!

Where does the time go?? It's been 9 months since the last time I posted pictures of the first Sharp Snow affectionately named "Whitesnake". Don't get me wrong, I've taken a ton of pictures in the past few months, just none that I thought were worthy enough to publish on the website. It is extremely tough to accurately capture his "colors" indoors, as I certainly have tried over the past 9 months!

I finally had 2 things in my favor - a weekend that was warm and sunny, and the time to actually take some pictures. I figured the best way to get some quality pictures was to take him outside. The picture above was taken in the shade. He is now almost 15 months old and doing great. He has a great attitude, and I have never had a problem with him. He's very tame, but loves to explore - especially while he was outside. I certainly didn't let him out of my sight for a second, especially since there are red-tailed hawks that frequent the area...I can't imagine the horror of seeing one of my prized possessions flying away as a hawk's snack...

He lost the lavender color in his tail when he was around 8 months old as it eventually turned white. The rest of him has turned a buttery yellow with white for the saddle color. I took some pictures in the sunlight which really shows the bone-white color of his tail. You can view additional pictures that I took here, and you can compare how he looked before as well. I also took some pictures of his counterpart, "Snow White", which I will post tomorrow.

One more down, one more to go...

This past weekend I hobbled my way across the finish line of my second marathon for the year. I ran the New Jersey Marathon in Long Branch, New Jersey. It was a great, relatively flat, 2-loop course which I thought I could run in 3 hours 45 minutes (which would improve my personal record). My first 10 miles I was on target for my 3:45 marathon, but then I started to break down. I made 2 "rookie" mistakes that killed me and my time - I should have known better than to make these mistakes....

The first mistake was that my first 4 miles were faster than the 8 minute 34 second pace I should have been doing. I was clocking in 8 minute miles for the first 4 miles before I finally settled into the right pace. This definitely killed me as the race went on as I put too much energy into those first few miles.

The second HUGE mistake that I made was not hydrating properly. They had plenty of drinking stations out on the course (a big thanks to the excellent volunteers!), but I think that I was too intent on keeping my pace where I wanted it to be to think about drinking enough water and Gatorade. I was running through each station only taking a swallow or two of water - DOH!

By mile 10 my pace started to slow, which I think is because of my fast start. By mile 20, I was in a world of hurt. I developed extremely bad cramps in both legs because I was dehydrated so badly. From that point on I had to walk a few yards, then I would shuffle my feet for a few yards (not even close to "running"), then go back to walking. Both legs felt like 2 bricks, and every step shot pain up through my legs - it was the most intense pain I've ever felt....good times, good times :)! I just wanted to hurry up and finish, but my legs didn't want to cooperate. I finally came across the line in 4 hours 33 minutes. Did I learn a lesson or two? You bet I did! Now I can't wait for my 3rd and final marathon for this year...Let the training begin - all over again!!

A huge thanks to my lovely wife and wonderful daughter for hangin' in there and being patient while this old man tried to finish. They definitely helped bring me across the finish line with their cheering and motivation.

Oh, I almost forgot - the pic above is of one of the albino's from Colombia's March 11th litter. Now that I have some time on my hands, I will try to take some pictures of the rest of the babies. They are all doing great, and wait until you see them! Some of them have incredible colors - they're going to look awesome as they mature!

I'll end my rambling for the night - enjoy the funny pic below which pretty much sums up my pain out there this weekend pounding the pavement :)!

Free At Last Part II

Here is the other free boa that I was lucky enough to receive with the Boaphile cages last year. Her name is Sunset, and I'm definitely diggin' her color! She is three years old, 6 1/2 feet long and 11 pounds. She was purchased by her former owner from a pet store in Frederick, Maryland as a neonate. She can be a hand full at times, but once she is out of her cage she settles down quickly. She works well with the snake hook that I have, so she knows that when the cage opens and she is touched by the hook that it's not dinnertime :). I think that it is important that as a boa gets bigger to make sure that you take extra care to not get bit. A good quality snake hook definitely helps to avoid any accidental bites as you first go to remove a large snake from their cage.

Here are some more pics of Sunset from this past weekend.

Free At Last!

After 4 months of quarantine, Samy has joined the rest of my snakes in the "snake room". She is a beauty that I got for free - yes free! I bought some Boaphile cages last year from a woman in Maryland, but she couldn't find a home for Samy or Sunset (more on Sunset in my next blog post). Samy's previous owner kept extremely good care of her and it shows. Samy is a 9 year old B.C.I., close to 8 feet long, and weighs in at 37 pounds. She is very calm and docile for a snake this big, but I take great care in respecting her and her size that's for sure!

Since it was such a nice day today, I took her and Sunset out for some pics. While I was taking pictures, a rabbit came into the yard - if he only knew he was 20 feet away from being dinner :)! He hung out for a good 5 minutes before finally taking off, lucky for him in the opposite direction of Samy...Don't worry, I wasn't about to let "Bugs" become dinner!

Here are some more pics of Samy.