snake n' cake

On Monday I went to gather eggs and found that one of my hens' favorite

nests was completely empty, which just never happens.

I knew that something wasn't right...and even though I knew what the likely culprit was,

I got up-close and personal to investigate anyway.

Sure enough, under all the straw was a coiled up snake.

Mercy be.

I jumped pretty high, I'm pretty sure.

But my two little helpers weren't the least bit afraid,

which makes me think I'm doing an excellent job raising some brave little hillbillies.

I couldn't be more proud!

Then yesterday there were eggs in the nest as usual,

so I thought our reptile friend had moved on to another crazy lady to scare.

But K-Man went down to investigate and "take care of business" last night.

And sure enough....

the slithery fella was resting comfortably behind a board next to the wall.

Next thing I knew,

we were having show-and-tell in the driveway.

Is there anything sexier than a man, his gun, his rake, and a snake?

I say, no.

And listen, as I've written about before, we don't normally kill black snakes.

They are actually very good to have around.

But...we couldn't take a chance on him coming back to terrify our hens

and eat our eggs.

Now I'm feeling sad.

***********

My goodness, 

let's move on to something much more pleasant!

We made/ATE a fabulously delicious cake last night.

I got the recipe from my good friend, Mary.

I bet you'll love it as much as we did.
Here's the easy-peasy recipe:

Mix up one white cake mix, add in 1 1/2 teaspoons of almond extract.
Bake the cake in whatever pan you'd like.
While that's baking, mix up some vanilla pudding (the pie filling version).
Slice up some strawberries.

Cool the cake completely.
Carefully slice the cake in half.
Generously slather on the pudding, add some sliced strawberries.
Put sliced cake back together.
Then top with cool-whip and more sliced strawberries.

It is such a yummy summery treat!


Now, let's eat cake and forget all about that awful snake story.