In the first month of arriving on the station I have encountered some unwelcome locals!
First was a python in the house! He had helped himself to a mouse I had caught on a sticky trap and in turn stuck himself to it and then wrapped himself around an ornament of mine beside the back door. Sorry Monty but you crossed the boundaries of friendship on that one.
In about the third week I hit a Kangaroo on the way to school, thank goodness for bullbars and side rails…no damage. I did stop to ensure she had died on impact and check her pouch..unfortunately she did have a Joey but it was dead also. As sad as it is it’s just part of living out here and I wouldn’t leave her to suffer if she was injured.
The third and most unsettling event was having to deal with a large brown snake on our back table right beside the back door. I am not unfamiliar with dealing with the slithery kind, we had to deal with them back ‘home’ however this was a tad more complicated. I had Ashton on my hip walking down the back steps ready to do the school pickup when I saw the big brown tail take off across the table right beside me. This table is against the back of the house and we have 2 large tool type storage boxes and a car fridge on it, and underneath is 5 rubber tuff tubs that store all of our shoes, so there was no way I was leaving this sucker where he was! I probably would have moved out if I didn’t vacate him. Anyway, so I put Ashton in the ute so he was safe, then went back to try and see this thing. They are so quick if you take eyes off them you usually lose their whereabouts, which is not what I wanted! The men were not around at the time, out and about somewhere too far away to even here my attempts of radio contact. I eventually saw him wedged between a tool box and car fridge so I decided to make a break for it and get the shotgun. Problem, Matt hadn’t informed me of the keys secret spot! Quick dash around trying to think like a man 🤪 and thankfully I found the key pretty quick. Back to the snake and it’s tricky spot. I decided to stand on our main outdoor table, a big beautiful old wool classing table that sits centre in our patio area opposite the ‘snake’ table. I didn’t want to fire at it between the 1 inch gap because I was worried about blowing the car fridge to pieces and I knew Matt would be disappointed about that so I started throwing things in it’s direction to scare it out. No luck it was completely ignoring any of my scare attempts. Meanwhile I’m now late for school pickup so I had to make arrangements for that and Ashtons still in the car. I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and I just have to take the shot. So I took aim down the tiny gap and fired (nearly deafened me under the tin roof I was practically touching with my head on) and I thankfully got it but not enough to kill it. It took off a million miles an hour under the house, I jumped off the table and ended up firing another 2 times and in the third shot it was wounded enough that it was immobilised. I waited a minute or so to make sure it was definitely not going anywhere and I left to pick the girls up! 😰 Turns out I only shaved the fridge cover and the cord which is an easy fix and the table bares some scars. …I did have to scrub some blood and guts off the house wall though! 🤪
After this came a humorous incident. Matt was cooking two lovely pieces of steak on our bbq and had left it to rest, when he came outside to get them one was missing! Bloody possum! We have had a pesky possum outside knocking over bins, scratching the screen window and generally being a nuisance. I had even started putting all our kitchen scraps on an old bird feeder away from the house to try and suffice his appetite and keep him away from the house, clearly this did not work! Matt even caught him happily chewing on the steak under the tree in our yard. Ah well, no steak for me that night! Matt was not impressed. 😂
For the rest of it, it’s just random green frogs on my kitchen bench and I’ve caught about 16 mice in the house so far. 🥴 I think I’m getting on top of them now! 🤞
I feel like I’ve passed any initiation tests Mother Nature has thrown at me but I’ve had enough for a while now thanks. 🐍 🦘 🐭 🐸
The Hanson 5ive 