A snake in the grass

Larry Jones, Democrat Columnist

One thing I’ve learned over the years is the fact there are still a lot of things I haven’t seen or done — yet. I saw a new one this past week as I was sitting on my back porch early one morning just as the sun started highlighting the live oak and sumac covered mountains across the river.

My backyard fence is a 5-foot-tall chain link with a pipe rail along the top, and birds often perch on it in the proximity of my bird feeder. As I was mindlessly drinking my first cup of Folgers eye opener, I noticed a long stick lodged in the fence near the top rail. Being several large cedar elm trees and one post oak in the yard, I assumed a dead branch had fallen and stuck in the fence. As I glanced at it again a few minutes later, it seemed to have moved a bit.

My eyes not being what they used to be, I decided to get up and investigate. As I approached the “stick,” it turned out to be a chicken snake that was climbing through the chain links along the top of the fence. I’m sure he was attempting to catch the birds that were congregating around my feeder.

For those of you not familiar with chicken snakes, I’ve been told they aren’t really a specific species of snake, but are actually a colloquial term used to identify a variety of snakes that eat rodents, steal chicken eggs, eat baby birds and tend to be a basic nuisance — at least in my mind. The snake in this part of the country that is generally called a chicken snake is in actuality a Texas rat snake, which is mottled black and brown in color and may reach over 6 feet in length, very agile creatures that can show up where you least expect them.

I’ve never been a tremendous fan of chicken snakes. One of my earliest recollections of the nasty creatures was when I was visiting Grandpa Jones one afternoon after school when I was about 8 or 10 years old. I was helping him gather eggs his hens had lain in apple box nests nailed about head high in the back of his old “car shed.”

He reached into one of the nests and momentarily froze. He quickly jerked his arm out of the nest and he had a 5- to 6-foot chicken snake by the tail. He immediately began twirling it round and round and then abruptly popped its head off like he was swinging a bullwhip. The vile creature had been making a fine living eating Grandpa’s eggs.

I recall we also had serious problems with predators stealing our hen eggs. An occasional possum, skunk or egg-sucking dog would make off with a few, but by far the most were lost to chicken snakes.

To minimize their impact, my folks bought light weight glass eggs from Weatherford Poultry & Egg Co. down on North Main and we would place them in the nests. The snakes would swallow them whole, and unlike the regular hen egg, these eggs would give the snake a terminal belly-ache. I have found the glass eggs a mile or more from the house lying in the pasture after the snake died and its remains had long vanished.

It’s been over a half a century since Grandpa’s snake whipping exhibition, and I still marvel at how calm, cool and collected he was when he reached into the hen’s nest and grabbed the snake.

If it had been me, I’d still be screaming and running.

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Larry M. Jones is a retired Navy Commander and aviator who raises cattle and hay in the Brock/Lazy Bend part of Parker County. Comments may be directed to nowhearthis@pwhome.com. Columns submitted to The Weatherford Democrat by guest writers reflect the opinions of the writer and in no way reflect the beliefs or opinions of The Weatherford Democrat.