On cleaning out the shearer’s quarters on the weekend, after being attacked by that emu, I scrubbed every corner of the rooms, in which large evil looking redback spider’s were happily living. By about my fifteenth redback, I was starting to feel them crawling up my back, biting through my socks, putting their creepy arms around my neck.
I came back and scrubbed in the shower, but was still feeling jumpy a day later. Clay had been looking for some bluetac to put some positive learning artwork up on the schoolroom wall, when I heard a scream from outside, the sort of noise I’d never heard from my eight year old son before. My heart froze, just as my feet flew to the door. Clay bowled me over on my way out. It seemed that he had opened the door to the office, two metres from the school room door, to see a brown snake at his feet. It hit his bare foot as it jumped inside and Clay jumped out.
Unfortunately, Al was still in the office, sitting at the desk, oblivious to the snake behind him. He lifted his feet as the snake dove beneath him. He raced to the door and got the snake catching kit, composed of a long metal bar with a hinged arm on the end, and a large sack. Eying off the RFDS medical kit, and yelling at the kids to stay inside and make sure all the doors were CLOSED, I kept watch until somehow Al lured it into the sack. We all drove off in the ute and let it go in the back paddock, watching with relief as it slithered away. A good lesson for the kids, but they are STILL leaving the doors open…