Snakes Alive!

Yes, it's the 's' word! And yes, dear readers, we have a very long, yellow-gold Cape Cobra in residence. In the front garden, that just the other day I was digging and poking around and moving rocks and weeding. And poking a stick down a mole hole wondering quietly to myself if there was a mole down there. The short answer is No. There is no mole down there for the simple reason that the cobra is down there! We saw one last year in the garden but we thought that it had moved on, hopefully far away! Well, a few days ago Rob saw it slide its way behind Mandela Bay, across the stones and pouf, disappear! I know that they are timid and that they are more scared of me (ja, right!) etc etc, but I don't want the cats to play with it, and Dopey was showing signs of doing exactly that! Last year a cobra killed a neighbour's little black Scotty, but the dog managed to fatally wound the snake too and they were both found dead the next morning. So, we have been watching the hole very carefully, (from a safe distance, inside the house actually, through the window,) stamping on the ground as we walk past, and this morning we watched it ooze out of the hole and slide across the garden, up some rocks and over a 90 cm high wall as though the wall wasn't there at all! That bothered me as we have low veranda walls too and I thought that they would be high enough. We even bought a bottle of Snake Repellent and have sprayed it around liberally. Now to find out if it works!

The head appears!

Up and over and away (hopefully!)

Apparently it works for scorpions, also regular visitors to the garden. They don't bother me as much as snakes do, we have the pale big-clawed small-sting ones that will give you a nasty sting and a headache for a few days, but are not fatal. Sadly for them, a visit to this garden is fatal! Rob made a very handy scorpion 'keeper-outer’, a length of shiny, rigid plastic that slots across the veranda entrance, because, happily (hopefully?) they cannot climb! In hot weather they scuttle around after dark and hang around the street corners under the lights waiting for insects, I presume.

A scorpion, tail poised.

The other 's' things we have here are snails! They don't bother me at all, we throw them over the wall into the farm area and hope that they make a meal for something! I was chatting to someone the other day and she said that a friend of hers and his wife let snails walk over them as the trail they leave is good for your skin! Honestly. (You can buy it in very expensive jars!). Apparently they lie in the garden and let the snails skate over their legs and arms but draw the line at their faces! Aaargh! Apart from the ordinary garden variety, we have tiny ones that cluster on top of poles in their dozens, and that were apparently brought here in timber from Israel. Their shells are beautifully coloured and they don't appear to do any damage in the garden at all.

A snail convention on a pole!

Interesting hey?

Sunset Snails!

And now, I am off to peer through the window again!