Snake Spit Is Really Slick

If you find that image distasteful, DO NOT LOOK ANY FARTHER I MEAN IT AND YOU BETTER NOT SUE ME FOR EMOTIONAL DAMAGES BECAUSE I WARNED YOU!
Okay?

So I went out to check for eggs. I have not been getting my full bounty and I know it. I suspected our snake but I haven't seen hide nor scale of her lately since I saw her in the front yard, headed across the street.
But when I checked a nest this afternoon, that picture above is what I saw.
Okay. I was PISSED OFF!
DAMMIT!

Mr. Moon of course was not at home and even more importantly the new camera's batteries had JUST been put in the charger.
What to do?
I grabbed the old camera and a small ice chest. I was just about to pick up the pitchfork when I heard the family whistle. Do you have a family whistle? We do. There are two notes to it and it means "I'm here. Where are you?" My granddaddy used to whistle those two notes to announce his arrival at our house when I was a kid.
Anyway, it was like some sort of miracle to hear that whistle because I knew it was my knight in shining armor, my husband, the birthday boy himself, Mr. Moon!

"Get out here right now!" I shouted and he came and saw and said, "That's not the same snake. That's a baby."
"You're right," I said. "What are we going to do?"
We being a completely false use of the word as I knew that really, there was no way in hell I was going to do anything with a pitchfork and a snake. I swear I was going to try though, until he got home.

To make a long story short, he picked up the snake and chopped its damn head off and I don't feel bad about that either. Damn snakes can't be eating our eggs.

As soon as he picked up the snake, the egg got dropped. That egg was really too large for that snake but he sure was giving it a try.

I didn't want to touch a snake-spat-upon egg so I got it into an old can and took it into the house to wash. It was Miss Betty's egg, by the way.
I discovered, upon washing it, that snake spit, as the title of this little piece indicates, is extremely slick and slippery which I am sure aids the process of getting the snake's head and throat down over that egg. As with so many things in life, patience, determination and the proper lubrication will get the job done.

All right. Here's the picture. Don't sue me. I warned you.

That is an actual egg in an actual snake's mouth. The egg is now in my refrigerator and the snake is in two pieces and flung over the fence into the woods.

Mr. Moon is taking a bit of a nap before we go out.
Yeah. He's the coolest.
You should have seen him pulling that snake by the tail when it was trying to escape. I kept yelling, "You're so brave! You're so brave!"

And he is.
My hero. Mr. Moon.

Now to get that big son-of-a-bitching snake.

Life in Lloyd. It's never boring.