Pseudechis Porphyriacus

Imagine an early Autumn’s cloudy, wet day in the UK and then heat it up by fifteen degrees.  That’s what Saturday was for us back at our 'farm'.  Big workload, heaps to do and it was raining.  Understand that sicknotes and wet weather bylaws don’t apply here, so forget the cosy workplace agreements where you can sit in a comfortable portakabin drinking tea and perusing the odd porno mag.  Here you work.  Remember that, potential farm slaves.  Work.

Yes, we got drenched but it was all in a good cause. Over 1,300 cloves of garlic were planted but only 5 Macadamia trees.  Garlic is one of the many crops that you can’t “hold over” till next year because there isn’t time.  Plant it or it tries to sprout, dries up and dies.  Garlic won the toss and the maccas will wait until I get back from Perth in early April.  So will the remaining 1,000 – 1,500 cloves but we’ll take a chance on them.

In the middle paddock, where the Garlic is grown, there was a mass of black plastic weed matting laid to kill off the grass.  Pseudechis Pophyriacus – the Red-Bellied Black Snake – loooves it.  Fantastic, centrally heated place where there are frogs aplenty.  Frogs love it because there are bugs aplenty.  Lucky for us the snakes in the middle paddock usually slither off when they hear us approach but this 1.25m one didn’t and followed us around for a while looking for a way to escape.  In fact, I suspect he/she is partially responsible for the periodic clutches of snake eggs found in two tyres left over from our potato crop.  It’s been christened the Red-Bellied Hatchery.  They’re elegant (if venomous) creatures and we’ll go the distance to keep them happy.

The Red-Bellied Hatchery and newly laid egg

Red-Billied bliss should not extend to when they decide to take up residence in our house though!  If an Estate Agent were trying to sell the idea he'd soon appreciate the "rustic charm" of living in a big barn has unexpected drawbacks.  Bats, nesting Welcome Swallows, leaf-tailed lizards and skinks we can live with (not that there’s a choice).  Red-Bellies not, especially when they are coiled right next to the washing machine.  A few months back I spent an entire morning chasing one (I don’t know who was chasing whom – it was a flexible arrangement) into a trap made from large piece of drainpipe to evict it.  This one wasn’t happy at me and made a hissing sound.  Not really a hissing but more of a “sh” sound: exactly like the shit sound I made when I almost walked on it…. In the end he sulked and slithered into the "burrow" but it was a very "exciting" morning.

No more farm work for now until early April.  I miss it.  I want to see the green tips of the garlic cloves poke their heads through the soil.  I want to nurture the yellow-leaved, minerally difficient new maccas until they bud new, green leaves (with spiny leaves that also contain a mild irritant, I might add).  So much to do but paid work beckons.

That and sword waving and stick bashing.  Huge amounts of that in the next three weeks including a visit to Sydney from a 6^th Dan from West Australia and a trip by me to Perth to take some instruction from an 8^th Dan.  Yes, working in the city has some benefits.  

At least our growing family of snakes will be happy for some peace.