First Year of living in Fregon
Oct. 1990 I hate snakes
This is really the first chance I've had to write any letters as we have been really busy, tidying up the house and getting settled back after Adelaide. We were really lucky because this was one of only two houses that were not wrecked during the Christmas break. Although the houses have bars on the windows and Lexin plastic for glass, the ratbag element of the community like to break into unoccupied housing by smashing a hole in the wooden wall or to bash a hole into the floor boards.
This is the backyard. Notice the bars on the windows and Lexin plastic for the glass. Lexin is almost bulletproof therefore it cannot be smashed. |
The reason why we didn't get broken into was because our neighbour the Treakles looked after the house and the garden.
The dripper system was on the entire holidays so the garden had really grown. The only problem was the snakes had also thought it was a good place to stay. There was three dead ones on the lawn. Treacle had told everyone else that there were other snakes living in the yard and he said that I needed to burn all of the leaves that had been dropped by the gum trees.
I thought I had better clean up the weeds and rubbish because I didn't want the boys to be attacked by snakes. So armed with a mop I thought I would be able to hit any snakes with a mop because it has a large head area and I am not good at hitting things. Dressed in long pants, boots and gloves I walked bravely into the unknown- -I thought that- I would attempt the attack on the snakes and the weeds in the hottest part of the day went the snakes were unlikely to be active. It was now about 45 degrees Celsius and everyone else was inside with the airconditioners going. It's no wonder I didn't die of heat exhaustion.
I was going really well and getting very confident that there were no snakes in this yard when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the under belly of a fawn coloured snake. I jumped straight up into the air about ten feet, never mind the fact that you are taught to stay -perfectly still. My adrenaline was pumping way too fast remain stationary. I remember thinking to myself what goes up must come down and I was about to come down on an angry snakes with fangs 100 cm, it was going to kill me no matter what and then all of its relatives are going to rain vengeance on all of my family.
Where do I put my feet, I'll try to get the snake with my trusty mop and place my feet as widely apart, on tippy toes. When I hit the ground I froze, nothing moved and I waited. Heart racing. After about ten minutes I thought I must look really silly to anyone passing by, so I thought I would just check out the area. Using the utmost caution and my trusty mop I scanned the area. Thinking that at any moment a 30 meter snake would rear up and attack my throat - I really an terrified of snakes.
MMmmm I wonder why the snake is not moving and how come I can see the underneath of the snake. This is not the usual position of a snake even when it is sunbaking. Slowly I bent down to get a better view and there I found a seedpod that vaguely looked liked snake scales. I breathed a great sigh of relief and continued to garden as if nothing had happened.
