It is summer here in Oz and they had snake stories on the radio today. A lady told how, about 40 years ago she was a young girl having a nap on her bed. She woke up to find a brown snake curled up on her stomach getting warmth from the sun shining there. She gently called out to her father who came into the room. He was an old bushie and just said "There's not much we can do about that then."
He pulled up a chair and proceeded to give her a spelling test. Eventually the sun moved and the snake slithered down her leg to the floor and her father shot it. The coolness of an experienced bushie under pressure and the trust of his daughter.

I remember when I was 21 riding trail bikes with friends along a sandy road. I was doing about 30kph and just spotted a 6 foot brown snake across the road. I couldn't avoid it and had to pull my feet up near the handlebars to avoid it whipping up and biting my legs. In the deep sand with my legs in the air I felt for sure I was going to slip over right on top of it. With balance like a terrified tightrope walker I made it through. One of the hairiest moments of my life.

After harvesting a crop of wheat, the stubble is burned. When I was about 14, I was doing the burning off, and was following the fire across the paddock. There was a snake in the path of the fire, and it went straight over the top of it. He was rather miffed, and reared up to about a metre high.

I had my 'snake-killer' with me (four strands of 12-guage fencing wire plaited together, about a metre long), and managed to get a good shot at it- took his head off about 6 inches behind his eyes.

I took it hame, skun it, fried him in butter and ate it- tasty, but zillions of tiny bones.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/bre...e-1226541136977
That story is so scary in more ways than one. That little tacker is lucky the snakes didn't bite him.

I know someone who was out horse riding with a mate. A tiger snake slithers up the leg of the farmer's horse, heading for Lord knows what. The person who told me that story was starting to panic thinking that they were in the middle of nowhere, there were no mobile phones in those days, and there was no way she could have got him back to help in time to save his life. She needn't have worries. Cool as a cucumber, he pulled out his whip and snapped the snake's head off. That's grace under fire!

Well we do get a few here, only one or two are dangerous. of course this one was!
My little cat went out through the bedroom (ground floor) window and returned a few minutes later and it occurred to me that she had not been wearing a long thin Genghis Khan type of moustache when she went out. Now she was, and it was wriggling and it was green. I screamed very loudly (the wrong thing entirely, I know, but wouldn't you?) This frightened her enough for her to jump out of the window again and return my gift to the wild. Bamboo snake here

I have a million stories .. old time members will have heard this one before

My best (worst?) was when my son was a toddler and we were outside. It was lovely and warm and I started feeling sleepy so i laid on the cement, on my stomach with my arms above my head. I felt something touch my hand and expecting it to be my son I lazily lifted my head to be eye to eye with a brown snake. We both froze for a few seconds (which felt like a lifetime) and then it took off one way and I took off the other squealing like a girl.

In the dim and distant past I hankered after visiting Australia, but no longer what with snakes and spiders, ewk.

My dad wanted to emigrate from the UK to Australia in the 50s, what with all the cheap incentive fares being offered. My mother would have none of it...too many snakes and bugs for my liking, she said. It seems she was right! Which is why we're freezing our backsides off on the prairies at the moment. Good one Mum!

Edited to fix the dang smiley...

Yet somehow we seem to survive. Copago.. you were so lucky! I hope you bought a lottery ticket or something while your luck was running. I've put my foot about about 8 inches from a brown snake while bush walking but that's the closest I've got. To have one run over your hand like that is terrifying. No wonder you ran screaming like a girl. Most men would too!

OUr kelpie killed one yesterday. A brown snake. It's the first time she's ever done it and I hope the last. That is surely a quick way to boot hill.

In our local town last summer there was a snake at the hospital front doors and someone killed and removed it but someone else complained to the National Parks officer since the snake was a protected species. *sigh* Yes they are protected but even the NP mob were okay with one being killed in this situation.

I think we are up to ten around the house here for this season. Away from the house we're quite happy to leave them be but around the house I don't even hestitate to ... yell for Jack to go and get rid of it. I'm too much of a wuss.

Last year we had one up the end of the verandah and since I didn't want to worry the boy about a snake being soooo close to being inside I happily called out to Jack to come out on the verandah. He is a bit hard of hearing and yelled back "What?"
so I said again "Come out here " ...
"What for? I'm doing something " ...
"Can you just come and look at this? " ..
"What is it???? :madder:"
"Oh for God's sake, just come and get the bloody snake!"
That made him run

Like I said .. I have a heap of snake stoies lol

We have snakes, spiders, sharks, crocodiles, jellyfish and octupi trying to kill us and some idiot made up as story about the drop bear to frighten tourists. It is supposed to be a bear that drops out of trees onto your head. Compared to the other nasties I don't think that rates.

The only snakes we have around where I live are little non poisonous ones. It may get to minus 40 in the winter, but at least nothing's coming out of the long grass to kill you.

When I was in Australia many years ago the friend I was staying with drove a little Mini Moke, which is a bit like a small jeep, very low down, and with no roof or sides. We went out for the day, T-shirts, shorts, flipflops, and there we were on our way home, tootling through the outskirts of town, when suddenly she stepped on the brake so hard the whiplash nearly broke my neck and then she threw the car into reverse so fast the whiplash from that put all my vertebrae back where they'd been before. When she eventually stopped the car she sat there shaking - "brown snake," she said, "reared up and ready to strike, it would have come straight in here, we'd no chance." Except we did have that one chance, that she'd have the presence of mind to almost kill me rather than let the snake do it for sure. She got rid of the car after that and bought herself one with proper doors. Can't imagine why.

The drop bear isn't real? Santa is though, right?

Your part of the world was sounding really good agony until you mentioned -40 in winter. My parents had to deal with those sorts of temps but they moved to Australia instead


We used to tell a joke that went "What's brown and green, and if it falls out of a tree on top of you, will kill you?" Answer: A billiard table.
Santa is real and lives in Finland, not the North Pole. There's no land at the North Pole so how can he build a house, toy factory, house and feed the reindeer? No, he lives in northern Finland. That's where mail addressed to Santa goes
http://www.santaclausvillage.info/santa-claus/santa-claus-main-post-office/