I don’t blame you at all, I’d do the same thing!! DH & I moved to FL from CT in 96. In all my life I had only seen 2 garter snakes. Here in FL it’s the norm to see black snakes and I’ve never gotten used to it. We see black snakes frequently from spring through November.
I used to keep a plant at the front door on a plant stand. It had one of those little plastic plant hangers to carry it from the top. It started to rain and I told DH I was going to bring it to the front yard so it could get rained on. He said he would do it and carried it to the front yard … a pygmy rattler jumped out. They are aggressive and fast little poisonous snakes but fortunately for DH he moves faster than they do.