The Drover's Wife Revisited

[Ric Raftis]

G'day all,

Well, I think it was called "The Drover's Wife", a short story by Henry Lawson about the woman watching all night for the snake in the hut.

Well, today I had Jude home sick from work with vomiting and the rest of it and had come in from outside at lunchtime to see if she wanted anything.  I came out from the bedroom and headed back down the lounge kitchen when I heard a noise like the rustling of crepe paper.  There's this four foot brown snake slithering across the polished boards of our living area.  Must have been the scales on the wood floor that I heard.  Thankfully we don't have carpet eh?

Well, the bugger disappears behind the wood heater and after some further investigation with the torch etc, I find that there is a great gaping hole there where one of the floor boards doesn't go all the way to the wall.  It has now been jammed up with paper until tomorrow when I will be filling the whole thing with mortar.

Later on, Jude got up and found another hole out in the pantry near the freezer.  We reckon that mice have gnawed this a bit and the snake has come in here and gone out the other way.  Problem of course is that he/she seemed to know it's way around pretty well, so we reckon it's been in before.

Then I'm working on the ute in the carport and the dog's lying in the back and suddenly stands up.  I can't see anything, but I have a bit of a "butchers" around and there's the bloody snake again coming along the garden bed about 3 feet away.  I watched it come out on the concrete, decided that was too hot for it and turn around and head back into the garden.  It then proceeded back to the door, turned around and headed across the driveway, through the garden beds and out into the paddock.

Hopefully that will be the last we see of the bugger.

I love to watch them, but I hate it when they catch me unexpectedly.  When I saw it in the house, my first thought was how we were going to get the bugger out!  I don't like killing them as they keep the mice down and besides, 90% of all snake bites occur when people are trying to kill snakes.

Make sure your doors are all tightly shut before going to bed tonight....  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[zondrae]

...

When we were living at Tabulam (Northern NSW between Tenterfield and Casino) we had an open fireplace. One Winters afternoon a 5 foot Brown came sliding out of our wood pile next to the fireplace. Luckily a friend and her husband were visiting. My old man was at work. I mother-henned my three kids to safety while 'slow Eddie' took to herding the snake with a straw broom. He got it through the kitchen and out the back door. He was quite relaxed until he found out it had been a Taipan and not the harmless grass variety he thought it to be. He is from India but turned white (for a while) when he found out the danger he had been in. We have no idea how it got in the house and glad to say it didn't happen again.

[Ric Raftis]

Damnit!!!!!!

I hate being upstaged Zondrae.

OK, I said the snake was a 4 foot brown, but really there were 12 fifteen foot death adders......   :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[the grey]

Strewth Ric.  Too much rum in the Chrissy pudding I think mate.  They're growing by the posts.

I hope they didn't leave any eggs.

That's 12 X *%@+  = Better think about moving mate or call St Pat.

[r. magnay]

It's OK to be lighthearted about it as we are, but we lost a fellow sparky here a month before Xmas this year, he lived on one of the rural blocks and had been having a party, went down the back to turn the shed lights off and on the way back to the house he thought he stepped on a dog bone, his wife found him brain dead in the toilet an hour later and they turned him off a few days later.........so.......be lighthearted but also be aware! A week after that happened a bloke got bitten and died in Adelaide as well!

[the grey]

I guess we've learnt we have to share this life with all sorts of critters that bite mate and can inflict fatal wounds, especially in the bush, though some critters are finding there's more takings in suburbia these days.   Amazing how some victims get away with it and others sadly succumb.  We can never be to blase`.  

I know of one old bloke who lived until he was ninety and his missus had been putting the bite on him for pretty well most of it.  The beauty of being Aussie I guess is that we've learn to see the lighter side of things.  But as you say - never become blase`with any thing that can bite.

All the best for 2007 Ross.

[Ric Raftis]

G'day Rosscoe,

I can assure you mate that I didn't think it lighthearted at the time.  I'm fascinated by snakes, but only when they are on the other side of some glass generally.  Being colour blind, I am particularly paranoid in the bush because I can't see them blending in to the environment.

When I had an irrigation farm in Shepparton, gum boots were always the order of the day when irrigating, but even moreso at night.  The place was full of tigers.