Honestly, who can blame me with all the animal interactions I’ve had in the first 3 weeks of living here. Seriously. Let’s start with the 7 foot (or ~2.2 meters as they would say here) snake that was just chilling one night on our front patio area when I got home. If you tell anyone in town that there was a python just chillin’ on your doorstep they make the funniest faces. Turns out that most of them have lived here and never seen a snake, or have lived here for a good 25 years and have only seen 2. Well, good, I’ve seen my share (and I won’t call it fair). So now I don’t need to see anymore for as long as I live here! Luckily, the python was more afraid of our car and slithered back into the bushes.
That’s right snake! Run! Yeah right, I wouldn’t even get out of the car. In fact, as Landon was unbuckling his seat belt to see the snake I was yelling at him to put it back on as if I was going to speed out of the driveway doing 80km/h. What if that thing decided to come for us?!? Yes, I know, I could have run it over with the car if it came to that. Whatever. In the last week I’ve come to come to terms with that snake because he ran from me, unlike some of the other animals. First there was that mouse that had set up camp in our vacuum and decided to high tail it out of there when I turned it on. Only, it decided to go when I lifted the vacuum head off the floor- I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t lie flat on the ground. Well, it was because there was a mouse holding it up! All right, a mouse is a mouse, they are everywhere in the world, but I’ve never seen one before. I blamed it on Australia, and we bought a mousetrap. As Derek put it Us: 1, Mouse: 0.
Then we have the occasional bird fly into the roof of the house, okay who am I kidding. They do it ALL THE TIME. So often now that we have all gotten used to it. While I was downstairs, Landon was upstairs playing and I heard a huge crash.
“Landon? Are you okay Baby?”
“Yeah. I think it was just a bird crashing into the roof.”
Yeah, that is how used to it we all are. I have no idea what is wrong with them, it’s a big TIN roof! I don’t know… But hey the birds aren’t the only things that we know that hang out on the roof. The other night around 3AM Derek and I heard something wrestling on the roof right above our heads. Then we heard what Derek describes best as, wait for it… “a baby being killed by a cat.” Just take a moment and try to imagine the sound. Derek and I clung to each other out of fear and I kept thinking, “Dear God, please don’t let what ever that is fall through the roof onto the bed.” The next morning Derek and I looked for blood. We didn’t find any in that area, but we did find some from those stupid birds flying into the roof. We later came to the conclusion that it was most likely our two opossum residents – either fighting or mating.
Last night, actually, a similar event happened. Only we heard the opossum slide down the side of the roof, and fall off while trying to dig it's nails into the tin roof. It was clearly a failed attempt. This time we both laughed. We’ve seen other animals. Our fair share of spiders, two big lizards, rabbits the size of Landon, some smaller opossums with big (cute) eyes, a rat, and there are wild turkeys everywhere. I think the most horrific experience for me was being attacked by a Magpie. Oh man, seriously. I took Landon to this park across the street from Derek’s office to swing and hang out while Billy and Derek talked business. Landon ran down to the swings while I very slowly strolled, one foot in front of the other, down a fairly steep hill when Landon started yelling at me, pointing. “MOMMY! BIRD!!”
The next 30 seconds were the longest of my life. I ran a little thinking the bird would just go away, but it followed me, dive-bombed me and then hovered over me. I threw my car keys at it thinking it would freak it out, but NO. It just made it more aggressive. After running into the parking lot, under the swing set, being pecked on the head and slapped in the face by it’s wing (it actually broke skin on my forehead) I started to scream. And all the skater boys at the park started to laugh along with Landon. After a good 30 seconds it flew off to a tree and watched me for the next 20 minutes while Landon played on the playground. When I told Derek and Billy about the terrifying experience Billy said, “Yeah, that will happen, it’s happened to me twice.” Great. Those were his words of comfort? Many of you have heard these stories already, but I figure that the stories are good enough to be told again. It’s always good to laugh in the face of fear. Well, in my case, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, and laugh later. Like now. Lately I’ve come to terms with nature, after all, I am the one entering their territory. Hey, tonight, you’d be proud, I even went to go investigate a weird noise our backyard. I figure I’ve had my fair share of scary things, so bring on the good stuff!
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