One of my most memorable and exciting experiences with my unsuspectingly tenacious little 82 year old grandmother, who was terrified of spiders but had no fear whatsoever of snakes. She and I would make the 2 hour walk to the top of the hill at her ranch home every few months - it was her unspoken test to see if she 'still had it'and I loved having her all to myself outside in our favourite place - nature! She would often remind me to watch where I was setting my foot, to stay aware of snakes. The deadly king brown and the black snake was rife in our area, but I didn't care as long as I was with my beloved grandmother!
We would sit on a hollowed out log at the halfway point up the hill and eat some nuts and an apple and she would tell me of when her father drove bullock teams over the wild mountain ranges. Grandma was one of 18 children, she told me many stories of her siblings' mischief. There was this one time the twins, 3 years old, were very quiet-too quiet, so grandma went through the house to look and found them both on the front step with their bowls of milk on the bottom step, tea spoons in hand and a huge king brown stretched out with it's head going over to one twin's bowl lapping the milk, then the little girl would tap the snake on the head and say "Get!" and giggle like little girls do and the snake would turn it's head to the other twins' bowl and take a drink until the other twin tapped the snake onthe head and said "Get!" My grandmother was HORRIFIED! But what could she do? The snake played with the girls for 10 minutes going on like this, letting the twins tap it on the head - the snake was enjoying a game with the girls! The snake just slid away when it had had enough to drink and to my grandmothers amazement the twins seemed to accept the snakes' presence as though it were a pet dog or cat!
I asked her did she kill the snake and she said she sent the boys to 'smoke it out'... (so yeah, I suppose it disappeared after that). Those twins are still alive and they remember that snake...
Grandma had many, many stories of pioneer life in the bush. From what I can gather it was very wild, not at all fancy - they slept on bags of hulled corn cobs as mattresses because in the Great Depression there WERE no mattresses!
I'd better stop there, I could go on as she did, for hours!
We would sit on a hollowed out log at the halfway point up the hill and eat some nuts and an apple and she would tell me of when her father drove bullock teams over the wild mountain ranges. Grandma was one of 18 children, she told me many stories of her siblings' mischief. There was this one time the twins, 3 years old, were very quiet-too quiet, so grandma went through the house to look and found them both on the front step with their bowls of milk on the bottom step, tea spoons in hand and a huge king brown stretched out with it's head going over to one twin's bowl lapping the milk, then the little girl would tap the snake on the head and say "Get!" and giggle like little girls do and the snake would turn it's head to the other twins' bowl and take a drink until the other twin tapped the snake onthe head and said "Get!" My grandmother was HORRIFIED! But what could she do? The snake played with the girls for 10 minutes going on like this, letting the twins tap it on the head - the snake was enjoying a game with the girls!
The snake just slid away when it had had enough to drink and to my grandmothers amazement the twins seemed to accept the snakes' presence as though it were a pet dog or cat!
I asked her did she kill the snake and she said she sent the boys to 'smoke it out'... (so yeah, I suppose it disappeared after that).
Those twins are still alive and they remember that snake...
Grandma had many, many stories of pioneer life in the bush. From what I can gather it was very wild, not at all fancy - they slept on bags of hulled corn cobs as mattresses because in the Great Depression there WERE no mattresses!
I'd better stop there, I could go on as she did, for hours!
I hope you enjoyed the snake story! xx :)