Live and let live has been my basic approach to life. All God’s creatures seem to have a meaningful life from the frog that huddles on my back porch at night to the tarantula-sized wood spider that was living in my closet. The wood spider seemed nice, but was too scary to have permanent residence status. We plopped an empty extra-large yogurt container over him, slipped cardboard underneath and tossed him over the porch rail to be free at last in the back yard. In our house my husband has perfected the ability to snatch houseflies on take-off and toss them out the door. We don’t stomp ants, kill crickets or crush caterpillars.
In the chicken house, however, there is a different law of the land. The chicken house stands alone on the edge of the mown world just inside the boundary of the dense underbrush. In the chicken house it’s every bird for himself with protection provided by the human one who brings food and water to the haven. Fortified with wood and wire the chicken house is virtually impenetrable and the chickens strut with great confidence in their safety. It was the tradition of the chicken house until the snake came.
I tipped the bucket to fill the water trough like every morning before. The guinea keets not two weeks old were in an early morning pile by the door and I didn’t see him until I turned back to exit. The unmistakable scale of the skin of the snake was just visible under the hanging feeder. Crouching down I had a better view of the black skin and white underbelly. The snake was curled with his lazy head just inches from the fluffy bunch of baby birds. In an instant I was certain that his inactivity was wholly related to the bulge of his middle and I knew it had been a night of feasting. Slowly I stood and eased out of the door to breathe and find a solution. My best solution had driven down the driveway to go to work just moments before. My husband assumes many of my life-tasks I don’t want, but not today.
With alarming speed that frightens me to this day I crossed the line from my firm nature-loving, pacifist philosophy to Rambo. “The hoe!” I thought. I ran for it, my mind full of disarticulated jaws slowly inhaling feathery guinea chicks. I snatched the hoe and ran to the chicken house. I opened the door and peered into the shadows to find the still snake-form snoring after the big meal. With the long wooden handle of the tool I prodded the slowly arousing snake out into the open, then with a twirl to the business end of the hoe-chop, chop, chop. I hoisted the bludgeoned, lifeless snake onto the end of the hoe and carried it like a flag to the woods edge. On my return to the chicken house the quiet fear that I had mistaken for sleepiness was gone and delighted birds were chirping and running about- saved and safe.
Now there is no absolute license to life at our farm. Some things must go like the aphids on my tomato plants that I squish between my fingers and the Japanese beetles that I crunch beneath my garden boots. The black snake in my kitchen can still expect to be escorted out in a paper bag and the garden snake may come and go at will in the compost bin, but beware in the chicken house where life is for the birds.