I've worked for two months on a ranch, in all kinds of brush, limb piles, and weeds, and not seen a single snake. Earlier, while cleaning out the mint bed on the East berm of the pond, I had the plants lifted up and my head stuck under them and remember thinking, "what an strangely colored caterpillar. Long too. Uh-oh." It was a fat little snake, 8 to 10 inches long, and not a caterpillar at all. It disappeared into the compost that is under the small pine tree in the mint bed instead of falling into the characteristic rattlesnake defensive position, and there weren't any rattlers, so it was probably a small hog-nosed snake or something similar. I still don't want to work in the mint bed anymore. Whatever it is if it comes out in the open very often one of the kestrels or hawks will get it.
As I finish the trimming, the Fall pond is starting to look like I had hoped it would.