Mystery solved: Things that make you go hmmmm…
.
In a reptilian kinda way…
It’s a snakeskin, found near our loading ramp, just 20 metres from the house.
It’s fascinating, all soft and light and supple…
And very, very long… see how it’s in three separate pieces? When it’s all added up together it’s almost seven feet (well over 2 metres) long. And that’s dried. Who knows how big it was when it was ‘fresh’? I’m not at all sure I want to be enlightened… (Notice how Lacie, in the background of the above pic, doesn’t seem too concerned. She knows the previous owner of that skin left yesterday! And if she hangs around long enough, the odds of getting a sheaf of hay increase exponentially. Whatever that means…)
Dash want to check it out. He knows this will be a killer exhibit at Show and Tell.
‘Let me try! Look Mum … it’s ‘mazing!’
I’m no Steve Irwin… and this thing kinda gives me the shudders. I’m trying to make this a salient lesson in “Why You Should Never Play Near the Loading Ramp on Your Own”.
I can’t get past the concept:
“A SNAKE USED TO LIVE IN THAT!”
But the kids are too fascinated to really understand what their Ma is carrying on about. To them it’s just totally ‘mazing. SSB thinks this skin maybe belonged to a black-headed python, like this …
…who can grow to three metres (almost 10 feet) are not venomous and considered ‘good’ snakes as they actually hunt and eat other snakes…
Hmmmm….not giving me the warm and fuzzies yet.
But at least they aren’t, like, the deadliest snake in the world. Not like this Fierce snake we had visit our little local show here a couple of months back…
Or this lovely black snake I spotted sunning itself on the road just a couple of kms from Granite Glen a couple of weeks back… Like I say, I’m not snake expert but it is possibly a black tiger snake (or yellow-bellied black)… which are no slouches in the venom stakes. I certainly wasn’t going any closer to ask if it was friendly or not…
In case you haven’t guessed, we are quite some way from a hospital.
And anti venom.
And all this just makes me wonder…
Who exactly owned that lovely silky calling card hung delicately over the branches of the bottle brush tree earlier this year?
The one RIGHT NEAR OUR FRONT DOOR!
So, now you understand why I am pretty good at checking corners and curtain rods and showers and branches for signs of untoward and uninvited slitherin’. Lucky I’m not the nervy type!
Hugs
BB
PS Have I told you the story about the time a taipan came in through the window towards Dash on Day 2 at Granite Glen… no?? We might save that story for another day. Don’t know about you but I need a cuppa/scotch-and-dry and a good lie down now!
11 Comments
Rhubarb Whine
Way kewl.
I will share with you an image of the day I unlocked the classroom and found a snake on the bookselves at school. I nearly poo’d messelfff….
Leslie
Crikey mate – I’m still shuddering!
debby
Dear heavens, before you have that lie down, be sure to pull the sheets all the way back and have a good look.
When I was in a high school, a boy was hunting and found a dead rattler in the snow. He brought it in for our biology teacher who planned to skin it out. He put it in the back room with the the dissection supplies. By the time that he got back to it, the burlap sack was empty. It had been merely hibernating. Caused a lot of excitement, but it was found. Everytime you do a post like this, you make me even surer that I’m not cut out for a life in the bush. 10 foot long snakes. Snakes in trees. Snakes coming in windows. Hell.
Pencil Writer
A healthy respect for our “slitherin” “friends” is VERY desirable. I think they’re fascinating critters–on film, on TV, in books and from a very GREAT distance, in most cases, in REAL LIFE. I must admit, I pet one at a zoo; picked up what I thought was a dead one–only to find it was MOSTLY dead (know the movie that phrase came from?), and got within a couple of feet of one at the corner of my driveway a few months ago that was apparently sunning itself. (It made no perceptible movement in the hour or so I checked on it. It was rather kinked up around the base of a shrub with its head in the somewhat alert position. Husband says he sees it from time to time at the back of the property close to the tree line. He thinks it’s not a threat to us–just to the rodents and whathaveyou that may be running about.)
BB do be careful! Coming in the window toward your little ones! Eeeeeeekkkkkk! Maybe you should invest (jillions of dollars, probably is the cost) in some of that anti-venon–‘cept how many kinds of killer snakes do you have in the territory?
Crash course in herpetology–venomous snakes speciality–possibilities coming up?
Pencil Writer
Ooooooh! I forgot to mention, I’d NOT pet the venomous kind! Though I do remember coming upon a rattlin’ rattlesnake in California once. Quick end to an otherwise pleasant beginning of a planned trek.
Liz
Oh my goodness. I’m shuddering with you. I kicked a snake one time. Totally not on purpose. It was dark on the back patio,and I thought it was a stick (it was a little baby snake). I felt something slap against my toe (apparently it’s little baby teeth that didnt strike hard enough) and nearly passed out. Snakes. No thank you.
Karen
Yikes! I’ve heard we have rattlers where I live now, but I’ve only seen rat snakes. I like snakes and all; but, I don’t like surprises, especially venomous ones!
WT
We get our fair of snakes around here too, both black and brown. The cats and dogs seem to keep them away from the house though.
baby~amore'
Ewww – I do not like snakes either but very cool.
jeanie
Pencil Writer – the Princess Bride (best movie EVER)
BB – just remember the Black Snake is our friend – you listened to the man in between the clicks, didn’t you?
BOSSY
Yikes, yikes, yikes yikes yikes yikes YIKES!