things that wriggle

The worm farm is up and running.
Joe from next door supplied a handful of worms and we topped-up with some from the worm farm at Millicent.

 

They're a lively lot: whenever you take the lid off they're wriggling around eating the delicious left-overs gloop I vitamise for them:

 

remnant cucumbers from making bread & butter pickles

 

they also like newspaper, The Australian more than The Border Watch

Once a week they're  flushed with a bucket of rain water and the resulting liquid - worm tea/worm wee - is diluted 1 in 10 and used as fertiliser.
I'm expecting great results on the tunnel house plants.

 

HOWEVER
There are other things that wriggle, the serpents in Paradise.

 

David is away for two weeks fishing holiday with Roger Pfitzner in Coffin Bay - yes I know, a fishing holiday is ridiculous but they've been doing it for 22 years and hate to break with tradition.

 

My sister Jennifer came to stay for a week, and we came home after a day in Mount Gambier ready for our drinks and nibbles on the deck.

I had Willow on a long lead in one hand and a plate of smoked salmon in the other about to plonk it on the table when I noticed Willow sniffing at something long, brown and wriggly.

 

A snake!

 

I grabbed Willow and levitated inside, Jennifer and me both screaming and the smoked salmon left behind until I decided to risk retrieving it. We watched for ten minutes while the snake tried to find an exit: unable to climb the glass wall it slowly slithered down the steps, across the lower deck then UP the wooden retaining wall and disappeared under the bushes.

 

Willow didn't get much rest that evening as we kept waking her up to see if she was OK and she was; not that hot, floppy, flat-eared look that I remember so vividly from her previous snake-bite.

 

I haven't seen the snake since but now realise we need to make a lot of noise clomping around the deck to warn snakes to stay away.