Confirmed, Convicted, Escaped.

You know what I said in one of my recent posts (THIS ONE) about Mrs. (our duck) having a nest of 14 eggs?

Well, a week or two ago, Christian and I started noticing that every couple days she would have 1-3 fewer eggs than the day before.

Now, we were highly suspicious, but couldn't think of of any creature that would be able to get into their pen (a plastic pipe and chicken wire construction that is much heavier than it looks) and make it back out again.

We were really curious when Mrs. moved her entire nest a foot to the left.

A couple days ago, Christian announced that all the eggs were gone. Dad and I thought that maybe she had buried them so that she could take a quick break, but then a day or two later she still only had one.

Cut to this evening, I was walking down to the coop to feed everyone and out of habit, I looked over at the nest. Mrs. had been up and walking around, so I figured she was just waiting for me to feed her.

But no.

The nest was empty, and looked more like a mound than a nest. Partially out the back corner was a snake.

Five years ago, I would have ran screaming to the house for Dad (I actually did that once). Last year, I would have Christian help me take care of it (in fact, he did help me with one last year HERE, rather, I helped him). Actually, I'm pretty sure it was the same kind of snake. A big, chicken-killing, egg-eating, dasher-of-a-duck-mother's-dreams snake.

Now, this snake was crossing a line. Once you've gone through so much with your flock, you kinda get protective of them.

*snarl* 

No time for getting help (I didn't want to lose track of said snake). So I got a hoe, and was about to approach the legless lizard when he pulled himself back into the duck pen. I decided that it would probably be a good idea to get the ducks out before trying to deal with the convict. It took some convincing ("come on Mrs! Get out of there. Come on, hurry up!" *shakes pen* "please get out of there!"), but I finally got them to run out.

Seeing that this was to opportune moment to escape, the snake disappeared.

I've been waiting for ages to use this gif.

I guess you might say he's on parole. If I see him again, so help me.

 Then I sat Mrs. down (ok not really, but it sounds good) and told her that her purpose here wasn't to feed a resident snake, and that she really should build her nest in the chicken coop next time.


I'm back to singing Do You Here the People Sing? until the escapee has returned.