Getting Snakey

How do you know when you've truly become an acreage resident? When you have the snake man under speed dial in your mobile phone.

Yes, the tranquillity and relaxed atmosphere here at the new EDM home in the hills behind Noosa was rudely interrupted a few nights ago by a sudden sliding noise coming from the roof at 1am. The wife woke first and asked me what it was. Being half-comatose, I replied it must be the wind pushing some tree branches across the roof.

That seemed to resolve the issue (for me anyway) but a mere five minutes later it started again so I stood up and took a look out the window. No trees were moving in the wind so I thought I'd open it to see if I could hear something. Nope. Not a skerrick of sound out there so no wind to speak of.

Still being a half-comatose, I then took a few seconds to do the calculations in my head. As my synapses were trying to fire up, the wife blurted out "It's in the roof. It must be a snake". That certainly woke me in a hurry and it was a mad dash to the switch to put the light on.

A quick scan of the roof revealed it was all intact and there were no visible signs of an entry/exit point. I then looked down at the wife and we both exchanged faces of fear and confusion as we pondered what to do next. I think we were caught in a state of paralysis through hesitation though as it seemed like whole minutes passed before we heard the sliding noise again.

No hesitation this time though as we both quickly scrambled out of the room and along the hall to check on the son. You may wonder why we did this. Well, just a few days before, the antennae guy who came and fixed the TV aerial mentioned that he'd just come from Eumundi where a snake had dropped suddenly from a shop ceiling and caused all sorts of mayhem amongst shoppers and staff.

With that image fresh in our minds, we raced down the hall in fear of the source of the sliding noise dropping suddenly on us or worse, into the son's cot as he slept. Therefore, there was absolutely no chance whatsoever that we were going back into our room and trying to sleep again.

Knowing the son was OK, we then moved into the lounge room and continued our game of staring ahead and mumbling incoherent questions to each other that the other could not hope to answer.

Eventually, we determined it was too late to ring anyone after checking the internet for local snake guys and too late to try and decamp to a motel or something. We had to stay put. We had to try and get some sleep somewhere in the house.

Thinking ahead, I then grabbed all our phones, wallets, car keys, etc and put them in a bag at the front door just in case we had to do a mad dash out of there. Don't worry, I'm sure I would have tried to get the son out as well.

No actual decision was made as to where we would sleep but we found ourselves curling up in the loungeroom. The wife on the couch and me on a camping mattress just below. No words were spoken even though it took both of us a very long time to finally fall asleep. Unfortunately the loungeroom has massive sliding doors opening up to the east so it was wake up time as soon as the son rose. Well-rested and alert we were not.

Later on, about 8am, I decided to put on my boots and venture outside to check the exterior walls and roof around our bedroom. And low and behold, there's a snake sitting on the corner of the roof sunning itself. A quick call to the wife and within seconds she was on the phone to the local snake man.

She put me on and after describing the night's events and the snake on the roof, the snake man, in all his wisdom, said the snake on the roof was merely a tree snake and that yes, we probably have a carpet python in the roof. Just a mere coincidence that the morning after hearing a snake in the roof, I saw another snake actually on the roof.

The snake man then continued to say that being spring and starting to heat up, snakes in general would be re-emerging from their winter rest and would be getting active once again. He also said that carpet python's are harmless and that every second house between here and the coast would have one in their roof as well. End result, he didn't think it was worth him coming out and we should just get used to it.

He was a nice bloke who was happy to answer my inane questions, particularly as I had quite a few. He also assured me that it wouldn't come into the house itself and laughed when I asked about it falling through the roof. "You've seen too many movies son" he replied.

So there you have it. We just have to get used to the idea of a snake in the roof. Guess it's par for the course when you want to live in a rural setting for its' quiet and relaxed life. Being around nature with the trees and the birds and the roos is good, but you've got to take on all aspects of nature as well. Not just the cute and cuddly ones. So yep, we city slickers have to get used to it.

Doesn't stop me double-checking the manhole to the roof every morning though and peaking my ears out for that sliding noise again as I lie down to sleep. We did think we heard it in the wall one time actually so I'm even telling myself that it must have been making it's way out of the roof/wall and is outside now trawling the 11 acres we are on.

Yes, that must be it. It's gone now and I shouldn't worry or give it another thought. Snakes alive they say, but not in our roof.

Shite, what's that noise? Maybe it's just the wind pushing branches across the roof? It could be couldn't it?

EDM.