Monday 2 February 2009

Time to come clean

We had another serpent "incident" last night. This one was all too close to our front door for comfort, and it was without a doubt NOT a legless lizard.

I think they are all trying to find high and dry places out of all the puddles.

We had D.C. around for dinner last night (yeah with cyclone Ellie looming off the coast we still decided to entertain) and Wolf walked outside with him at the end of the night. As Wolf was coming to open the front door a little snake started moving out towards him at about waist height from the cardboard plant beside the door (that's the name of the plant, it's not made of cardboard because with this rain it would then have to be called a "mushy pile of soggy cellulose plant").

It was only a little python (we think) and it was quite a pretty little thing. It was however between Wolf and the door and not entirely agreeable to him getting back inside. I was going to get the camera but I felt kind of sorry for the little guy, he was just trying to get dry out of the puddles and people were disturbing his rest. Wolf eventually got inside without any fang marks in him.

So after our adventures with snakes this year I thought I would share some of my irrational snake fears. Most things I fear are as rational as fears get... spiders hiding in strange places, kids getting badly injured etc. My snake fears are specific, and I have now added one more to the mix.

I hate standing next to the garage door as it opens just in case a snake is curled up on top of it and opening the door would dump the snake down on my head.

I keep my gumboots inside and still worry every time I put them on that a snake will be curled up inside one.

I am sure there is a snake hiding in the cardboard plant waiting to attack me as I go past (yeah, I already had that one, now I can't use the front door anymore).

I am sure that when I open the lid of the side burner on the BBQ a snake will be curled up in there resting after having a good meal of all the frogs that like to live in there.

I always think I hear snakes in the garage where we keep all the gardening tools. Our computer is in the garage and I often sit with my feet tucked up on the chair.

I am sure we are going to find a snake in the cubby house one day. (that one came a little too close to true)

I am now convinced that I have to get the Christmas tree put away today (don't judge me, I love Christmas trees) or I will find a python taking refuge in the driest tree around.

I am practically hyperventilating writing this list. I'm not freaked out by snakes, I just don't like the surprises they give. I will happily hold a python in one of those animal display things, I don't scream like a girl and faint at the sight of a snake, I have a respect for them and I understand that they are having some housing problems with the current weather and they too want somewhere dry to live. I would however like the snakes to stay away from my fears and just let them be irrational. I do not like having what I thought were irrational fears realised.

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I'm glad I got that off my chest.

Cyclone Ellie (I instantly thought of you Renata) crossed the coast a couple of hours north of us about midnight last night. It was only a category 1 so nothing too dramatic. We did clean up the yard yesterday and stashed a bunch of stuff in the garage. It's been a bit of a weird one with super heavy rain then 20 minutes later there's blue sky. Give it another hour and it's back to heavy rain. So everything is even soggier this morning, Wolf has taken our car to work this morning because we didn't know what the roads would be like and what turn the weather would take as the ex-cyclone/tropical low moves south and turns back to the coast. We are going to be just crazy by the time he comes home this afternoon! We can't really go outside because I am still on edge after Fridays snake incident. I'll let them ride their bikes in the garage this afternoon since there's no car in there to get in their way.

Must go and arbitrate yet another fight.

14 comments:

  1. I saw Wolf pointing something out to you as I left, but thought perhaps it was a slightly more unusual frog or frog population.

    My first snake encounter was as a fresh immigrant from the land-of-no-snakes at age 14. 100m to the side of a dry riverbed in a national park I saw what looked like a walking stick rise from the undergrowth to reach for a low hanging branch. I scarcely knew what to do with myself, but managed to remain composed, and have been working on a cultured attitude of steel-reinforced nonchalance ever since.

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  2. My irrational snake fear -

    That my car motor is the warmest place for a snake at times and as I get out of the car one day, a snake will bite my leg.

    I'm sure that helps you feel SOOO much better, but I thought I would share :)

    I would be entirely freaking out if I had seen 2 snakes in a week.

    Snakes DO make me scream like a girl!

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  3. You know, I think I would be thinking about snakes alot more if I saw them alot more. I saw one in the garden once but that was about it. So I am feeling your pain.....

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  4. Here, we have to worry about snakes coming near the house in the hope of finding water!

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  5. Despite the rain, Ralph just came and turned my computer off so that we could go to the park. No, it is bucketing. We are not going to the park. Yay for bananas in pyjamas - I'm back on the computer, not at the park.

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  6. Our main worry is like Mum-me's that they are trying to find water - thankfully they're more likely to go to a dam etc (esp with 2 cats in the yard!)
    I had a laugh when my Mum told me the cyclone name as well!!!
    Glad it ended up a category one - although sounds like you sure don't need the rain!!

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  7. Agggghh! Snakes-- I don't like them!

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  8. I suppose I'm a bit too late to assure people you did not get this rational/irrational fear from me. I have a healthy respect for snakes, but apart from their smell which is a bit rank, I have to say I rather like them.

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  9. Glad to hear the cyclone didn't cause too much damage. Hope you survived your car-less day without any blood shed.
    We had a snake come in the house here once. Brett was home on his own and saw it go under the lounge. Brett is very afraid of snakes but he tried to chase it out, breaking the broom in the process. He had no success. It had vanished. And while I'm not afraid of snakes introduced in an up front manner I am with you and I was totally freaked by there maybe being a snake lurking somewhere in the house. I kept hearing things. We never found the thing.
    So, I feel your anxiety.
    Hope you figure out a way to co-habitat until it dries up.

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  10. @DC - Nope, it was a snake. I think it may have eaten some of the frog population.

    @Girl FTV - I forgot to put in the 'snake wrapped around the axel striking my leg as I get in or out' fear.

    @Renata - with any luck the snake will eat the neighbours cats :) I'll send you some of this rain if I figure out how.

    @Sandra - we survived the day... just. I am sorry to do this to you but now I have visions of this snake that crawled up into your lounge insides and has been living off the biscuits and sultanas that find their way between the cushions and is now too big to get back out the way it got in and is going to burst out one day while you sit and watch Oprah. Yeah, that's the weird way my brain works.

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  11. We have snakes in our backyard. Not pythons though. Little snakes. I've luckily never seen one but the rest of my family has.

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  12. I am extremely snake phobic...so I'm just gonna have to go detox after reading that post...
    ;o)

    Stay high and dry, Girl!

    Blessings!

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  13. Whenever I go camping, I always shake my shoes out before putting them on (because I leave them outside the tent). I'm more worried about a spider being in there than a snake.

    My fear of snakes and spiders is rational... but at the time slightly irrational :P I know, in my head, that a snake is probably more likely to bite me than a spider. It is also more likely to put me in hospital than a spider.

    I still hate spiders more.

    However, I think I'd probably freak out more if I found a snake in the house, because you can kill a spider, and can't kill a snake.
    (Well, you're not supposed to, plus it's harder). We killed a snake a few months ago when it was sitting above our front door and refusing to let us in. Our landlady (who lives next door) didn't want to risk it finding her sons or dogs, and seeing as all the snake handlers in Townsville were either sick, injured, not answering their phones, or saying "it's only a green tree snake, it won't hurt you", she decided it had to be killed :P

    You probably don't want to hear the stories of us finding snakes inside our house when I lived with my parents...

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  14. My best girlfriend and I have shared many snake adventures over the years. Most likely because between us we have 10 boys.

    Her boys have pet snakes, and frogs and lizards, and Tarantulas. She's a better women than I.

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