RIP Snake With No Name and Superman the Hen

A post not for the faint of heart.

I posted this a week ago but it deleted.

Argh.

So, S3 is doing well now.

And planning his pets for next year. 

It's been a rough stretch for S3.

Earlier this month, S3 ran into the house looking for me to nurse...

A snake.

In the tank with the snakes, frogs and turtles, the snapping turtle had taken a bite out of the snake and it wasn't a recovery snake.  The turtle had gone right for the middle of the snake to devour it up.

S3 was ready to move the snake to our one and only bathtub to nurse the snake well.

I told him, "No way."

And then I watched his little lip quiver, his eyes fill up with tears.

I still said no.

But my husband and I headed out to see the snake in recovery.

S3 had taken the turtle out and moved him out to a new habitat (how many habitat these boys have for reptiles is unnerving) and removed the snake to lay on the grass.  There it laid still, unmoving.

Only a slight flick of it's tongue gave indication it was still alive.  In the middle of the snake was a huge chunk gone. The little turtle had thought the snake looked very tasty.

We brought S3 into the house so he didn't have to see while S1 took care of the snake and buried it out in the weeds.  He was sniffling and crying.  "That snake didn't even have a name," Jake tried to console him.

"But it was my snake and it was trained so good," he wailed.

What do you say when your son is sobbing over a snake?

I just sorta ran out of words at all so I just gave him a hug.  

RIP Snake with No Name

Less than two weeks later....

S3 headed out to the chicken coop with a bunch of chicken scraps.  Any leftover food or cleaned out fridge food goes right out to the chickens.  They get to dine on home cooked meals quite regularly. 

Suddenly he came bursting into the house.  

His chicken, his beloved chicken that had survived all the raccoon attacks this summer, had died.

And my poor son had been the one to find the chicken.

This chicken has had quite a life.

There was the day we took the chicken to school.

Yah, you read that right.

Superman the hen did a rather memorable class trip and I chalked that up on my "Never thought I would do this" list.

All summer we have been fending off raccoons and have had to keep our usually roaming chickens penned up.  But something had grabbed the hen and taken it's head off - whether a night time critter or a dog - but the chicken was dead and he was devastated.

My heart broke for my son who's heart is so soft that he sobs over dying snakes and dead chickens.

RIP Superman the Hen