She begins each day with a visit to Autumn's House of Hens. While there, she feeds her chickens, lovingly clucking to them while she cleans the hen house and, finally, gathers the eggs they leave for her.
Her favorite is Phyllis, a tiny black silkie banty who loves to brood. She has successfully hatched chickens, ducklings and guenia fowl. Her latest attempt was three huge peacock eggs.
One morning, she went into the henhouse to find Phyllis sitting on one peacock egg. With no visable sign of entry, she concluded that a snake had made his way into the hen house and eaten two peacock eggs. In an attempt to save the remaining peacock egg, she put Phyllis and the egg into the nursery.
Big mistake.
The next morning, not only was the peacock egg gone, Phyllis was dead.
Her head and neck were wet due to his attempt to swallow her after constricting her little body. She surmised that he gave up, regurgitating her and squeezed out of the nursery after digesting the egg.
The next day, she spotted the snake. It is a Rat Snake and well over 7 feet long, surely a record even for Texas. Texas Rat Snakes are the only snakes that can vertically climb a tree.
She had thoughts of killing him for taking away her beloved Phyllis.
However, one cannot help but admire the beauty and grace of this huge creature who does his job as God planned.
Super Snake lives on at Burnt Biscuit Ranch and continues to sneak into the hen house for a fresh egg from time to time when not hunting down mice and rats.
