Thanks for the ideas. When I was out there last fall, I was clomping around like Frankenstein, and a couple months ago I went to R.E.I. and got a collapsible metal walking stick. Made in Germany, so if those snakes are serious then so am I.

The rock piles are a bit of an issue, because one thing we've been doing is a lot of rock picking (as in about a ton so far) for the garden up here. This is where we've been going. The rocks are unreal.

The boots are just a security blanket until I've run into a few of 'em. I'm not even going to start in on the cougars ...