Off to a startling start!

The first day of the year was marked with loads of excitement!  New Year's eve came with a gigantic Goanna surprise while we were just sipping our morning coffee.  We woke up with a chatter of chicken chirps and a large dragon looking reptile clawing his way around the chook house.  Later that night, it sounded like a band of fire trucks were spraying our house with massive amounts of water as the rain poured down.  We got 175mm or 7 inches in a couple hours.  Thunder shook the windows and lightening lit up the house in flashes of white light.  We woke to see many NYE party goers sitting out the flooded creek, while stranded at the community hall just down the road.  I rode my bike over a couple bridges that were under water by about 8 inches.

This morning I sped off to town to pick up some food from the farmer's market and saw some of the aftermath of the intense rainfall.

Before I left for town, our water was out.  This tends to happen when the creek floods since debris collects on the meandering polypipe, sucking our main water line out of the spring.  I'll post a photo of the dense rainforest walk through the creek to get to the spring.  I've been on the lookout for falling Pythons as I walk, ever since my run in with one last night in the chook house.  I went to shut the chooks in, and to my surprise, was a coiled up Python inside their house...and Lisa, the smallest of the chooks was missing!  I got Tessa and had her hold the light while I used our animal capturing tool. I knew this tool was going to be something to keep nearby at all times.  By the time we came back in with the flash light, the Python was already in the roosting area where they lay eggs.  We didn't waste anytime, and hooked the Python around the head and pulled him out of the chicken house.  I wanted to take him for a ride, but Tessa said to let him go outside the gate of the chicken run.  After finding Lisa nestled in the grass near the grey water lagoon, we put her safely to bed with her sisters and then retired for the night.  

This morning while trying to fix the waterline, I nearly stepped on the Python!  I yelled some swear words that I cannot put in my blog, but you can imagine how surprised I was even though I should have been expecting this.  They just blend in.  One day soon, we'll either have a new pet Python, or a new video of him being let go, just over the hill.  Stay tuned.  

He's waiting for another egg.  

Now that I can pull Pythons out of the chook house, Tessa says I'm a country man.  I forgot to mention the large hanging spider who was waiting to bite me as I gathered the Python...I even accidentally walked through his web with all the excitement of dragging a 9' Python out of the pen in the dark of the night.