Tuesday 10 August 2010

We're Under Siege!

They are coming to get us...

The creatures...

Creeping in from every direction...

Playing on our weaknesses...

Closer and closer they come...

AND THEY ARE TOTALLY FREAKING ME OUT!!!!!

Over 9 days we were beset with some of the most hideous happenings around this place.

Episode One... Saturday lunchtime July 31st.
The boys and I are going stir crazy.  I can be inside the house all day and not worry most day.  But I hate the Saturdays that Wolf has to work.  Those days send me round the twist, I count the hours until the shop closes and then I start to listen like a crazed woman for the sound of his car coming down the street.  So we I decided to get out in the yard and do something domestic.  I had been getting sick of seeing all the weeds growing into the boys sandpit so I thought I'd go and pull them out.  I set up the playpen with a large towel underneath it so my baby couldn't choke on nature and need an ambulance ride to the hospital like his big brother did, put the baby in it and set to work.  I kept my eyes peeled for my old friend but he was nowhere to be seen.  I got through that and looked around, I might as well keep going since the bin was only half full of weeds.  I decided to tackle the bindiis (bindy-eyes) that are trying to take over our yard.  So there I was right next to the playpen with my baby in it pulling out great heaps of bindiis and weedy vines hand over fist and shoving them down into this bin.  I reach out and grab a handful of vines and start to pull... two great big hair arachnid legs reach out menacingly towards me... I let go of the vines, step back and bend over to have a better peek... it's a whopping great bird spider ready to suck my brains out like a milkshake and then follow it with a monkey brain chaser.  Well, that was the end of that little bit of domesticity... I grabbed the baby and came inside... and then called from the relative safety of my house to the two big boys playing in the sandpit that it was probably getting a bit to hot outside and they should come in now.  Wolf came home and couldn't find the spider where I said it had been... he did find the sucked-dry skin of a big old frog tossed aside by a bird spider like last nights take-away container.  Did I mention this was RIGHT OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW????  I did  NOT sleep well that night!

Episode Two... Sunday evening August 1st.
Wolf has said there is a smell around... I have little sense of smell so I'm not much good at locating the source of these things.  I figure it can't be that bad since he is just complaining about it and not getting down and finding it.  Eventually I go to put Monkey to bed and it's too much for Wolf, he decides to empty the dishwasher because he figures if the smell is in the kitchen then getting the dirty dishes out of the way will go a ways to finding the stink.  The next thing I know he busts into the bedroom where I am feeding the Monkey and thrusts a camera LCD screen in my face all the while gagging and heaving.  I can't quite make out what is on the screen but I can tell it's inside the dishwasher.  Monkey has been well and truly woken up so I take him out to find out what is going on.  It was indeed the inside of my dishwasher... the dishwasher that I had put on just before lunch the day before... for about 30 hours the contents of that dishwasher had sat undisturbed bar the removal of a couple of pieces of cutlery and two breakfast bowls... and there, on the bottom of the dishwasher was the body of a rather large green tree frog... or at least he was once green, before he decided to slow-boil himself in our dishwasher!  I'll spare you the photo... I can't stand to look at it again to load it on here I'm not sure if you're eating or not so I'll just leave it on the hard drive.  At this point I realised that I had used one of the breakfast dishes that had been removed and I started gagging too...  Eventually we managed to slow the gagging enough for Wolf to remove the trays and try to lift out the soft boiled frog.  But it wouldn't lift.  It turned out it was baked on to the bottom of the dishwasher.  I'll spare you the details and just tell you that a barbecue/paint scraper was involved in the removal of the frog and our dishwasher has never been cleaner... and we washed all those dishes again and try not the think about the ones we used!

Episode Three... Monday midmorning August 9th.
I'm sitting at the computer right beside the back door.  I hear a noise, kind of like the breeze blowing through the long grass at the back fence... but kind of different.  I've heard this noise before... My entire body does NOT want to move but not knowing is worse... I get up, I look out the back door across the patio to the grass... nothing.  Thank goodness, I could have sworn that was snake noise.  I go to sit back down and catch a glimpse of something move right at my feet (on the other side of the screen)... a two metre long snake is slithering past my back door!  My mind goes into bladder control mode and then reminds myself to get the camera so I can look at photos when I am trying to identify it later...


Yep, that's a snake.


creeping creepily across my patio.


This one is just because I thought two photos might not be enough for you.

I chased it along to the next room and took more photos through the laundry door but they didn't work and it scared it and it scooted off into the grass.  Uh oh, I didn't like knowing it was on my patio but I REALLY didn't like not knowing where it was at all!  I rang Wolf at work, shaking like a leaf, and had a little freak out on the phone.  I spotted it over by the kids sandpit and had insane thoughts of grabbing one of their nets and getting out and catching it.  I didn't think those thoughts for very long.  I watched as it crept all over the boys toys and explored our yard.  Wolf told me to make some noise so it knew it wasn't welcome.  I had a baby asleep so I wasn't about to make some noise for an animal that doesn't even appear to have ears.  I remembered something about stamping on the ground when bushwalking will let snakes know that you are around and you are bigger than them... sounded good.  I put on my gumboots, tucked my jeans into them and went to go outside... I couldn't see it anymore.  Hang on, there he is... gingerly I open the door, he doesn't move... I go out onto the patio and stomp my little feet for all I'm worth... he still doesn't move... I edge over to the grass to get a better look... Hang on, if that's a stick then WHERE IS THE SNAKE?????  I hurry back inside and determine to never leave my house again!  After all, he's probably curled up on top of my garage roller door waiting to drop on my head.  I had a little vent on facebook and my sweet, kind cousin let me know that he was probably in my house by now... I went to close the window over the screen with the hole in it and shove a towel under the door into the garage.  I found that the garage door was open... he could be in my house!  Cousin P then proceeded to suggest what he might be doing in my house and give me photos of babies and snakes.  Yeah, I needed that.  My other male cousin from that side of the family Cousin A kindly suggested that I shake out my quilt before I go to bed because snakes like to make themselves comfy like that.  Thanks.  I was a neurotic mess by the time Wolf got home.  Monkey and I practically flew to the car to do the school and kindy run that afternoon.  Hooooo boy! I'm still getting the hibbidy jibbidies thinking about it now!

So anyone want to come and visit?

This is on top of the spider trapping me in the shower not too long ago.

They say that all of this nature and junk is a sign of a healthy environment.  Healthy, shmealthy, bring on the smog and pollution, I don't want all this nature getting so close to me!

Okay, you'll have to see yourself out now, I'm just going to go and curl up foetal position in a corner and rock back and forth for a bit.

20 comments:

  1. I wouldn't be too happy either. YIKES that would have put me over the edge. Off to read about your being trappd in the shower. AAACK!

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  2. Urgh...I feel all itchy and crawly now!

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  3. There is no way I could survive living in Australia...way too many BIG creepy crawlies!! I lose sleep over seeing a regular tiny house spider.

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  4. I could barely read this!! I kept getting creepy-crawly goosebumps and shivers. We have snakes from time to time... outdoors or on our front porch. Harmless ones.... but still. Ewwww.

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  5. That reminded me that a couple of Sundays ago at church after the service having a cuppa tea/coffee people kept saying there was a fishy smell in the kitchen. After some invesigation a dead frog was found in the hot water urn where everyone was getting their hot water for their tea or coffee. YUK!
    You didn't say what type of snake it was and the photos aren't very clear, you should have opened the door and taken some close-ups of its head. (just joking)

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  6. Believe me, that is not a harmless tree snake and it is huge. My gut feeling is that it is very deadly. Can you take a picture to the nice herpetologist at JCU? Or national parks guys? You know I'm no expert, but I'm also not usually a sensationalist about snakes. Why didn't you tell me about this??? That is not one I would like to be near. Tell Ben to keep his nose peeled. Snakes often have a distinctive smell.

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  7. @SB- I've heard about that happening with urns... YUCK!
    @GS- Thanks, now I am freaking out all over again. It's colouring was just like the tree snake that I got a little too close to once before... It was blackish on it's back with a pale yellow belly. It had the python shaped head but I will admit it wasn't as distinctively shaped as I would expect for that size snake and it's body wasn't as thick as I would expect from that size python... hibbidy jibbidies all over again!

    I also have some photos of its head but they are through the screen and the camera focused on the screen and not the snake... perhaps I'll email them to a crazy snake collecting friend.

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  8. Bad news - taipans also have a creamy underbelly and your snake's head was more taipan than tree snake. If you happen to come into any extra funds, I would suggest getting a mower man to do a really good job of clearing as much long grass as possible from your yard and around the fence or make a special request to the council to clear around the outside.
    It is definitely not a python either or a whip snake. That pretty much excludes the harmless species.

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  9. For those not up to speed on Australias venomous snakes let me read to you from my wonderful wildlife book...
    "Possibly the most dangerous snake in the world... blah blah blah" I tuned out about the neurotoxins and myotoxins and stuff...

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  11. OK so the spider I found kinda interesting. The boiled tree frog, interesting but kinda gross. The snake??? OMG heebie jeebies..... want to vomit on your behalf... and would happily murder your cousins who are now going to give me nightmares by proxy.

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  12. Wow, Australia is so amazing. We used to live in a house where we caught a tarantula on the front lawn, battled scorpions on the driveway and had a family of blow snakes trying to take over a flower bed. (I kept moving the blow snakes back across the street and up on to the mountain side, one would pass me going one way as I was going the other way, I started to think they were teenage snakes playing tricks on me)

    We do have some rattlesnakes and some coral snakes that are venomous the only place I've ever seen one though is in a park in the middle of a populated neighborhood. Go figure.

    I'm sorry for your invasion. The frog in the dishwasher is sooo yuck.

    Remind me to tell you my shop-vacuuming a mouse story one day.

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  13. snakes are deaf, making noise will do nothing. They 'hear' via vibrations in the ground - you are better off jumping up and down, stomping around, that kind of thing.

    Also the most venomous taipan is the inland taipan not the taipans you get around here... either way taipans in general are pretty much the worst you can come across :P

    Have you seen the snake climb up anything? Venomous snakes cannot climb up vertical surfaces and can only climb up things like trees and rocks etc if they aren't too steep/short.

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  14. A photo of the head would have been the most helpful bit in identifying it. It could be a taipan but it could also be a treesnake. Treesnakes don't have the distinctive diamond-shaped head that pythons do, and can get very dark with pale underbellies. That one you have there looks very much like a treesnake we had on our front door once, except ours was shorter.

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  15. @Leah, I stomped for all I was worth! Nope, it didn't climb. I wanted nothing more than to look out and see it sunning itself along the top of the fence but it didn't come to the party... it's all not looking real good. This would be an unusually large tree snake... it was over 2m long. I have photos of it's head but they are through the screen so not real good, I am emailing them to a snake man. Since I got kind of up close and personal with it and then have looked at all the photos on the web and in my book, I must say, taipan is the front runner.

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  16. Totally awesome!

    I still want to come vist. However I don't think Boy Mom will want to come anymore.

    My oldest just brought home a monitor lizard. We now have it, a ball python,a red tailed boa, a corn snake, a leopard geko,and a hermit crab. The golith bird eater died. These are all pets. Our oldest and youngest boys would love it there.

    Be careful and remember to check inside your shoes before putting them on!

    Luvs

    Suz

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  17. Oh no - I could stomach everything, but that snake. Noooooooo! Here of course, the chance is 99% it is poisonous too. I would not sleep until it is caught.

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  18. Oh No
    I'd have freaked out as well - especially about the snake -eeeek!
    Hope you have a nice & creatureless weekend!
    Renata:)

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  19. OMGOSH! I think I would FREAK over the snake and the spider!
    The frog... just plain old gross.
    {shudder}

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  20. You have totally been overwhelmed with freaky animals. You could do with a visit to say New Zealand where there aren't any snakes to lurk and scare you.

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