Eek!

When children start yelling and everyone congregates around the chicken coup like this:

Then you know something is up. When my squealing children finally managed to speak, the only words I got were "snake" and "eggs."

Do you see the egg in it's mouth? Or our precious eggs under the coils? Quinton assured me that it is a gopher snake. Harmless. Length: 5 feet! That is not so reassuring.

Stephen grabbed the remaining eggs and tried to remove our visitor from the coop. The snake won on that account. After crushing the egg and spitting out the shells, he slithered off for a nap by our front porch. I think this counts as science for the day.

Quinton protecting the chicks.

Our saved eggs.

In other news, we have three bats making a home on the back porch.

This is a lot of wildlife living at my home!