A visitor of sorts

On Tuesday, Sidnie's best friend Halle came over to play while, while her Mom went to the dentist. After playing inside for a while, they wanted to go out in the back yard. The girls immediately climbed into our playset and I got distracted with my flowerbed and the weeds therein. I pulled a few, when I saw a small SNAKE in the dirt near our Hosta plant. I was unsure if it was a safe/good snake or not. I easily caught it with a sand toy and a bucket. My neighbor's came over and were trying to help me determine what kind it was. My neighbor reached the handle of his shovel down into the bucket and the snake coiled and tried to strike at the handle several times. It was an agressive little sucker. But in the end, we determined it was just a garden snake and we let it go. I'm just glad it wasn't a baby copperhead with a mother and 4 siblings nearby. Phew!
You can't see his darker head in this one very well.
You can't really determine his size either from the bucket. He was only 5 inches long or so.