Rain! Craftday and Snakeskins..

Last Thursday week ago, the 13th February, we had the most wonderful rain which lasted all day long and into the night as well.I couldn't resist taking photos of the rain falling on this dry, dry land and flowing into the pond, the frogs singing their happy croaking songs all day long continuing into night as well, allowing me to count how many were in the chorus,four tenors, three altos and the occasional basso profundo and one that sounded more like a cricket than a frog.

 I took a photo of the puddle lying on the track with the limb which came down in the last storm and the shiraz vines of our neighbour in the back ground. I know it would seem crazy to the poor people in the south of England who were enduring huge floods at the same time but we have been so dry since early October that rain to us is such a treat at this time of the year.All the trees and plants have responded dramatically and the Jacobean lilies , the Bella donna lilies are all up and looking beautiful.

Craft day was at our place last Thursday and we were only a small group this time. It is always a pleasant day with everyone doing their own thing in craft or doing their own thing in contemplating others doing craft while as hostess I am in and out crafting the simple lunch of soup and bread.
My creativity is out the window at present, can one blame the heat waves we have endured during January/ February? Books are much more interesting in the heat of summer. I am re reading all the Patrick O'Brian series with Aubrey and Maturin the main characters. They are an education in themselves and have looked up so many references to not only 18th century sailing ships but the characters were great natural philosophers as well and have looked up numerous words and names of unusual species.
We were all amazed when one of our group brought in this beautiful freshly shed snake-skin she had found in one of our National parks while climbing the hills.

 We think it is possibly a brown snake.
It was truly amazing because it was totally intact without a break anywhere. You can look up how a snake sheds its skin on "youtube". It is fascinating to watch and it must feel so good to a snake to do this, rather like peeling off a tight body stocking I imagine.....
We didn't measure it accurately but it would have been well over four and a half feet,or nearly one and a half meters for those of you who are more familiar with metrics.

 It was so intact that you can see the lenses of its eyes and the colour of the scales are this soft lovely browny green. The jaw line is quite visible too. Snakes evidently can shed their skins three or four times a season. The person who brought this in also watche a red- bellied black snake swim across the little dam they were standing by. The match box with the head is to give you some comparison for size.
I have met some amazing snakes in my life...
Once, riding out with my future husband who was talking to me, so did not see the King brown snake ahead of us till he wondered why my eyes were the size of saucers watching this snake rear up

chest high to his sixteen hand horse! He managed to evade it but it was not shy this snake and would have struck if the fence had not been in the way at this stage. Another snake had crawled into the dunny shed and was blasted by a shotgun in self defence as it hung from the rafters a few inches away from his face....it left rather a draughty hole at the back ....
In those days we did kill them but now we conserve them in the hope they may bite a politician......