Nature up close

Yesterday, I weeded my fern garden which grows around two oak trees in the front of my house. It had been some time since I paid it any attention and the ferns were overgrown and the weeds were thick. As I bustled around pulling and thinning, I disturbed a thin black snake with bluish rings around it. I can't find the species in my snake book or even on Google. So, I'm thinking it's an immature black racer. Anyway, he moved on. A little later, the dirt seemed to move, and a big toad appeared. Finally, as I watered the huge fern pot in the middle of the garden, I must have flooded a carpenter ant colony. They scrambled out the fonds and onto the tree, to be observed by the pair of lizards, which I thought would have an easy meal, but they ran from the ants! All of this wild Florida in one little 4'X5' space. This is the before picture.