BEAUTIFUL quilt!
As for the snake - before we downsized/moved, I grew to hate our pool. Snakes, turtles, frogs, crawfish, rodents . . . . We were always having to fish some critter out of it!
One morning, we even found a drowned rabbit, in it.
I started leaving a floatie half-way in it, when the weather was especially dry, to help the critters climb back out.