Snakes in the Grass

Of the worlds twenty five most venomous snakes, twenty of them live in Australia. In the list of the so called hit parade, it is not until you get to Number 13  the first snake from outside of Australia gets a look in, or should that be fang in; the Cobra.

There are different ways to determine how deadly a snake is and you will find some discussion as to exactly how the list of the most venomous is comprised. As far as the number of people killed each year by snakes, the fact that Australia records about four deaths a year from snake bite, belies the underlying danger.

The list I have quoted is from data published by the Australian Venom Research Unit which uses a unit of measure called the LD50. Without going into specifics it is a measure of how much venom produced by a snake will kill you. The lower the score the higher the kill power.

 A red bellied black snake cleans out the tadpoles in the paddling pool.

 In Australia snakes simply are a fact of life.On our five acres of paradise we have encountered tiger snakes, number 4 on the list, rough scaled snakes ( 16), red bellied black snakes (21), crown snakes   ( venomous but not in the top 25), as well as carpet pythons and diamond pythons. The last two will kill your chooks, maybe your dog or cat and inflict a nasty bite, but are non venomous.

To put all this into perspective, the Eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake, the first entry on the list from America, comes in at number twenty three of the most venomous snakes on the planet.

Hey every place in the wondrous world has it's good points and it's bad. Appreciate the good and cope with the bad, what more can you do?

The majority of snake bites in Australia result from people not leaving the damn things alone.

" The only good snake is a dead one" is a common catch cry. 

It is in the attempt to kill that you have to get close. A  snake that is threatened or indeed hurt is a very dangerous critter and rightly so. Humans get pretty riled and tetchy in similar circumstances! The fact that killing wildlife is illegal seems to matter not.

 A carpet python makes itself comfortable in the my shed.

The phobia of snakes, it even has a name, Ophidiophobia, is the second most common phobia suffered by humans in the world. It is argued in our early tree dwelling days, the snake was one of the few animals that could harm us hence the deep seated fear we possess. If one learns to accept them they certainly pay you no mind. As a previous ophidiophobic I can attest to that. They are like any other creature. They live by their own means in their own world and with some obvious intelligence generally keep well away from human activity. However it is the consequence of not realising they are there that should always keep one alert.

A red bellied black snake again, not always easy to see if you are not observant.

Living remotely it is important to learn about where you might find snakes and avoid them as much as you can. Have access to a compression bandage, know how to use it correctly and have some thought as to how you could find a makeshift splint.

The majority of advice of how to deal with a snake bite assumes three things; you are not alone when bitten, you are close to assistance and you have a mobile phone. When you have thrown the safety net of suburban dwelling away and where you are in the place where you are more likely to find serpentine friends, these assumptions are in the main incorrect. If you happen to have a mobile phone in your pocket, it is unlikely to have coverage, and your trusty compression bandage and splint are back in the car. Damn!

I mentioned this to my doctor once as I was interested in what a medical person would say. You are advised to stay still, apply the compression bandage, fasten a splint to prevent movement and send someone for help. So what do you do if you are out walking and get bitten by a snake, have no compression bandage, no splint and the chance of someone hearing your cries or happening along is about as likely as the average Joe Blow walking on water?

His answer was pragmatic and simple; improvise and move.

" You could tear your shirt and make an improvised compression bandage. Find a stick or anything to use as a splint. If you were bitten on the leg (incidentally the most common place to be bitten), find a makeshift crutch to help you get along without using your leg as much. If you do not think anyone is ever going to find you within an hour or so, then move."

At least I had an answer and one that I have never seen documented. Maybe people do not want to truth. 

My neighbour always said in case of snake bite you should carry one of those fancy cigars that come in the aluminium pipe cannister, and a box of matches. When I asked him why he replied, " So if you get bitten by a tiger snake you can sit down, light the cigar and enjoy those last dying moments with pleasure!"

A carpet python in the garden with the rhubarb. You have just got to learn to live with them.

Move On or Be Eaten.

If you scroll through some of the "electronic grafitti" as our current hipster Prime Minister calls comments on facebook ,twitter and the like, you will find some review of what visitors to Australia think of Australians.

" very friendly and laid back people."

"aussies are so chill and nice".

"egalitarian give everybody a fair go."

In the main positive and complimentary analysis. However behind the social facade lies a deep and murky Australia. Not egalitarian and give everybody a fair go but a selfish give ME a fair go, I want, I need, you have, I take.  I am talking country Australia where you had best protect yourself from the thieves and vandals.

Our move to the country was borne from the desire for freedom and space, to reconnect with nature and a chance to provide for ourselves with something we had grown for our kitchen table.Our new largely barren garden needed work to achieve our last goal but we set about building our new life.

It is recognised the addition of trees to a property adds value without costing too much other than time. We set about our task adding a mini orchard, trees for shade, trees for climbing and trees to attract the wildlife.

"Several recent nationwide surveys show that mature trees in a well-landscaped yard can increase the value of a house by 7 percent to 19 percent." Frontdoor realestate

"Trees add value to a property, and a mature fruit tree adds even more value than a non fruiting species." Mary Francois Deweese Landscape Architect

As time has progressed have our trees added value to our property? Certainly in  aesthetics, comfort and financially in value added. Have we managed to provide an epicurian delight of fruit and jams and pickles for our kitchen table? The answer is simple, we have managed to provide a bounty but not one that we have managed to enjoy. The enjoyment has gone to the birds.

A rainbow lorikeet samples the nashi pears. It will then move onto the next one and then the next one until the entire tree is denuded. It has many friends to help in this arduous work.

Sulphur crested cockatoos make light work of the apples. The apples are too immature to pick and do anything with.

Look at the pretty sunflowers...yum, yum, yum.

We are onto our fourth or fifth iteration of a vegetable garden. What great lessons have we learnt here about getting produce grown and harvested for our usage and a little for our chooks?
Apart from the obvious and ongoing experimentation of what grows well in our micro climate and soil type we have learnt nature is not always ones friend. Perhaps nature is but some of natures little creatures are not.

Wallabies. Cute and adorable but rabid, regular, voracious eaters.

The vegetable garden is fully netted against the birds with a reinforced base of corrugated roofing iron to prevent the wallabies from eating through the netting to gain access.

From the kitchen window it looked like a small black snake was lying next to the car. In fact two small snakes, how strange. It took a while and about $100 worth of new wiper blades. for us to learn this one. When you get home and park the car, cover the wiper blades as the crows come and eat them out of their mountings and throw them on the ground. The small snakes were discarded wiper blades.

We found lengths of irrigation pipe made the quickest and most robust protection for the windscreen wipers.

We have embraced the frogs in all their wonderful cacophony. They are a sign of a good robust environment and they do not steal vegetables or fruit.

We have learnt to combat the micro bats living inside the eaves with a well placed camphor ball deterrent. They too create only a potential hazard with their droppings and a nuisance with the smell. They again are not thieves, just occasional and minor vandals.

An unusual find, a microbat was inside in the daylight behind the curtain. They used to regularly get inside via the light fittings and fly around in the dead of night until we worked out the deterrent.

The camphor balls hanging at an entrance point to the eaves.

We have learnt to accept and coexist, albeit warily, with our elongated friends who again leave well enough alone as we do them.

A red bellied venomous black snake in the grass.

A red bellied black snake clears the paddling pool of tadploes.

A carpet python rests next to the rhubarb. When you come across this unexpectedly it is the poobarb patch!

The chook egg thieves call occasionally and feast for a few days until our intrusion sends them on their way.

Don't get me wrong, we love our life in the country now that we have cottoned on to how to cope with the intrusion of our animal friends. But back to the descriptions of Aussies as applied to the native animals that visit....

" very friendly and laid back people."...Our place is a regular Woodstock! Free food, free music, no violence, no wonder they come in their droves!

"aussies are so chill and nice"...Put it this way, they don't mind us being here in fact we provide all this yummy food for them!

"egalitarian give everybody a fair go." They give all their mates a fair go but I wish they would leave us just one nectarine, one pineapple guava, one plum, one apple, one peach so my wife and I could share just one taste of what our fruit trees provide for them all. Is one too much to ask for?