The Day We Were Chased By a Snake!
As I look back on our childhood I have come to realise that we were incredibly lucky that we enjoyed so many farm holidays and got to see close up so much more of animal life than our city sisters and brothers.
These farm stays came about because our extended family and Legacy all supported us; people – and some were total strangers with very big hearts who stepped into help our mother, who at 33 years of age was facing the huge task of raising 6 children. Alone.
So this particular story came about when my twin brother and I were staying on my father’s cousins farm in Warrnambool in country Victoria.
Peter and I were aged about 8 years, when we stayed on this dairy farm where we played with dogs, went on tractors, saw geese and ducks and on one most memorable day I only just managed to climb/fly over the paddock fence as a flock of turkeys chased me at speed.
I will never forget the sheer terror I felt as these huge birds, focused solely on me, thundered up the paddock in hot pursuit. I don’t believe I had committed an evil deed.
Quite probably I had just existed at them.
Well after one such busy childhood day we were just meandering up the path to the kitchen door, when suddenly it was flung open and a huge male voice yelled “RUN.” Which we did. With alacrity. Through that door at speed.
The next thing that happened was a huge gun appeared through that door and when it was swung into action the head of a tiger snake parted company with its body. It seems that unbeknownst to Peter and me this snake was chasing us up the garden path — literally.
This was definitely a snake I never saw coming!
It seems that tiger snakes don’t normally chase people unless you get between them and their destination; so it is quite possible we were in its way, but who knows if one of us was about to be delivered a potentially fatal bite.
Thank goodness for those vigilant gun-carrying guardian angels!
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