Country living

I love living in the country, do not get me wrong when I write the rest of this............There are just some things that need to stay in their own space.......

Kent goes out durning the sprinkles after we got home from running errands and was doing chores.........He is getting ready to gather eggs when low and behold he finds a snake in the hen house............Lets just say I have a love/hate relationship with snakes.........Some really do have a purpose on this earth.........And the one that is in my hen house does have a purpose which is why she didn't end up dead last year when I caught her in there then.........Do I know she is a female nope, just a feeling.........However her purpose on this earth is not to be in my henhouse eating my eggs.......I know she got at least one.........There was 14 when they gathered the eggs after getting her out of there...........Kent gets her out of there and brings her up to the house so I could take pics........haven't gotten them downloaded yet but will post them as soon as I do........He stretched the darn thing out and she is 5 ft long, I kid you not........I have a pic that I took of him holding her up next to montana who is 5ft 2 (so she says) and the darn thing is as long as she is tall............I have never in my life seen such a long black snake...........After the kids are done playing with her, Kent takes and throws her over the fence into the field..............

what is the purpose of keeping a black snake around........Well the mice population (that I have no clue why they are on this earth, what is their purpose other than to feed the snakes) is almost non-exsistant...........So this is the 3rd year we have seen a black snake, the 2nd year for my hen house.........Ya know how many mice I have seen this year.............NONE, notta, zilch, zero.........She must be doing her job...........When we moved out here there were so many mice, it was awful........after we started cleaning up the yard and hauling off or burning trash they seemed to thin out but I still found one or two occasionally...........then at the end of that summer (06) Kent found a black snake sunning itself in the honeysuckle when he was cleaning and trimming it up.........And ever since then we haven't seen a mouse again..........But then again we have seen the snake again.........Now how do I keep her from getting in my hen house again............