A New Year

It has been such a lovely winter. :) I have so enjoyed the snow. As usual, much has happened and now I'll be writing about it all at once.
Loki found a new home with some experienced snake owners who I know will take good care of her. But I miss her so much! :( She was the perfect size. Big enough to really feel weighty, but small enough to manage- not too heavy to lift, not to big to house, and not to expensive to feed, and most of all, not to big to be dangerous - except for maybe a bite on the nose! ouch! (I'd hate to be that guy!)
I can't wait to have dwarf Burmese and super-dwarf reticulated pythons. Both of these normally giant snakes only top out around 7 to 8 feet in the dwarfs. (about the size Loki was) If this year's breeding season goes well, I can expand into the larger room in the basement and have a couple of these bigger snakes. I'm looking at granite Burmese, but there are so many pretty retic varieties... I can't make up my mind where I want to start!
Also I want to get into carpet pythons. Yesterday I brought home Toby- a male (unconfirmed as of yet) coastal carpet. I don't know anything about him unfortunately. He's just a pet shop boy. But he is a super sweet snake and I just love him! Here's a picture of him asleep in his new house.

Here's a blurb I wrote about his trip home from the pet shop:
Toby had a pretty stressful trip home. He HATED the pillowcase. I've never seen that before. Usual...ly snakes LOVE pillowcases. But then again I've never seen a claustrophobic cat before and yet our cat, Turbo, freaks out if you put him in a cat carrier. His eyes dilate and he howls and starts panting and clawing at the door. That's kinda what Toby did. I thought he was in pain or something like his tail was bent maybe, so I opened the bag to see if he was ok. He stuck his head out and crawled up my neck and then he was fine. So his bottom half was in the pillowcase and his top half was around my neck like a scarf. We thought about just letting him ride home like that but I was afraid if the car noise (vibration) frightened him I'd stress him out even more trying to keep him still. So back into the bag he went. He was not a happy camper. He kept pushing at the bag all the way home. Then it was to the bath tub. Not only was he dirty, but he was dry as a bone getting ready to shed. I thought a nice warm bath would be a comfort, but no, he hated that too. :(
So he just got a quick warm dip, a quick run through the towel and another scan for mites, and then he went down to his new home which thank goodness he seems to adore! He crawled all over his tree branch and started rubbing his nose on everything. I expect I'll find a shed in the morning.

Here's a couple new pictures of Amina. She's friendly, curious, and growing like a weed. She gets into everything. Here she is helping Nef with her makeup.





And here she is climbing the fig tree and looking out the window at the snow.