Farm1 wrote:
songbird wrote:

i hope everyone out there in r.g.e land
has a great season -- even those folks down
under who are having a nice summer right
about now.

Thanks for the kind thoughts but as for the 'nice' summer, I'm feeling a bit
tender at the moment because of a number of factors............

ruhroh!


Each morning, I go out kitted out in gardening gear after a shower and come
in dripping at about noon and swearing to myself that I really won't shower
before gardening again but each day, I get into autopilot and head for the
shower first thing..... I really must buy a dependable brain.....

heh, showers are what tell me that i'm alive
in the morning. at the end of a gardening day
i'm about ready to fall over so i just get out
a bit of soap and a washcloth and that does the
job. most dirt is between the toes anyways.
hands i usually wear gloves to keep the damage
down.


Then yesterday, at dusk, I grab the compost bucket and head out to my big
plastic compost drum and flip the lid back only to be confronted by a very
large Eastern Brown Snake in the bin. I scream and back off quickly after
throwing the compost bucket and contents skywards leaving an agitated snake
wriggling madly in the bin under a partially open lid. I head inside
feeling like at total wimp.

i think running away from a threat is
much preferable than being an example.
macho BS is for TV.


Eastern Brown snakes are an edgy, nervy snake and highly venomous.
According to my snake ID book they are 12 times more venomous than a cobra.
I'ts hte sort of anske that is OK behind glass in a zoo where it looks
singularly unimpressive but it's certainly not teh sort of snake one wants
to meet up close and personal.

sounds like a good plan. i'm sure glad we
don't have those around here.


During the day we'd been working in and around that compst bin as it sits
between 2 apple trees and we were putting nets over the fruit trees as the
cockatoos are starting to take fruit to get to the seeds. Himself had also
been on his hands and knees weeding under one of the apple trees so he was
also not happy when I told him about the snake because of 'what might have
been'.

uyeah!


Today I decided that I needed to face the fear so went back and had a look
in the bin. No snake thankfully. I decided that I'd use my compost screw
to aerate the bin and was prepared to drop all and run if I pulled up a
snake. All went well - just lots of wriggling red compost worms.

*whew!* but now you are on-edge all the time out
there. are they climbers?

will you be rousting about looking for it?


But otherwise, on the plus side in the garden, I finally have tomatoes just
about ripe, there are zucchini on the bushes and it looks like we might get
an excellent crop of apples and pears.

oh good! i'm glad to hear you have a fruit
crop this year.


I just hope that is the last sodding snake I see for the season. Ever again
would be good, but that is way too much to hope for.

i will hope you won't see any more of those kind
of snakes soon unless you are moving them along to
another home. protective gear, yep, i'd be wearing
it too no matter how much i sweated.


songbird

"songbird" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:

Today I decided that I needed to face the fear so went back and had a
look
in the bin. No snake thankfully. I decided that I'd use my compost
screw
to aerate the bin and was prepared to drop all and run if I pulled up a
snake. All went well - just lots of wriggling red compost worms.

*whew!* but now you are on-edge all the time out
there. are they climbers?

Not that I've heard but the other common snake we get here (tiger snake)
supposedly is. According to a herpitologist I spoke to when I had one of
those in my wood shed. they like to climb into bushes at about chest height
and arealso commonly about after dark. His advice was not to go wandering
about outsside at night.

will you be rousting about looking for it?

No. These snakes are elapids and thus highly dangerous and best givne a
very wide berth. I think the only elapid the US has is the coral snake and
although I know the US does have rattler hunts, I don't think that coral
snake hunts are common :-)).


But otherwise, on the plus side in the garden, I finally have tomatoes
just
about ripe, there are zucchini on the bushes and it looks like we might
get
an excellent crop of apples and pears.

oh good! i'm glad to hear you have a fruit
crop this year.

We've had a major strawberr glut. That was a delight but we're now waiting
or a second round to crop.


I just hope that is the last sodding snake I see for the season. Ever
again
would be good, but that is way too much to hope for.

i will hope you won't see any more of those kind
of snakes soon unless you are moving them along to
another home. protective gear, yep, i'd be wearing
it too no matter how much i sweated.

There really is no option aobut moving them along. They just live here and
that's that. the worst thing was having Jack Russells. They regulalry went
fo rthe snakes and ende dup costing us a fortuen in anti-venine. We lost an
ealry one we had but then the next two cost us a bomb. One was over $5K
alone - about $2K of that was snake bites. Add to that the organophosphate
poisoning the little sods got and it's clear how much we liked those little
brutes since we shelled out so much to keep them alive. Sadly we now just
have a Cavalier King Charles and he's dumb and boring, but stays away from
snakes.