{"id":298,"date":"2026-07-01T13:32:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/?p=298"},"modified":"2026-07-01T13:33:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:33:02","slug":"the-snake-and-the-egg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/?p=298","title":{"rendered":"The Snake and the Egg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It sounds like a parable. It isn&#8217;t, but there is an important lesson to be learned: never put your hand into a laying box, or anywhere in a chicken coop, without looking carefully first. We&#8217;ve had many black snakes, like this one, curled in our boxes, and copperheads too (though the former usually keeps the latter away). These photos were taken this week by my friend and neighbor Nance Murphy at a nearby farm. She went to gather eggs and found a friend, of sorts, instead. If you look closely at the second photo, you&#8217;ll see the snake looking back at you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-299\" style=\"width:586px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2075-850x638.jpeg 850w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-300\" style=\"width:588px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2076-850x638.jpeg 850w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It sounds like a parable. It isn&#8217;t, but there is an important lesson to be learned: never put your hand into a laying box, or anywhere in a chicken coop, without looking carefully first. We&#8217;ve had many black snakes, like this one, curled in our boxes, and copperheads too (though the former usually keeps the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenafeder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}