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On Saturday we were up quite early to finish putting out hay bales onto the babies. First I will explain the technology involved with this task. The big, round bales have all been stacked in two long sausages down beside the first grove. We both get on one side of a bale and rock it until we get sufficient lift on the upward rock for Simon to get his knee
under it, shift our hands and shove her over out of the line. In the mean time Gigi has got her snout in under the bale to find the meecies (mice); this does not help with balance, completing the defining shove on the bale or anything else, but how can one fault her enthusiasm.
This Saturday, however, we were distinctly lacking in energy and decided that it was going to be too hot for Gigi so we left her at home. Simon thought that it would be silly to expend so much non existent energy on shoving the bale out of the line, so he took the big iron bar and shoved it into the side of the bale at about 8 o’clock, attached the rope,
tossed it over the top and hooked it onto the ute. I stood back to see how it would work, and tell him to stop if the iron bar was bending too much.
He popped the clutch, the bale moved effortlessly up and over, and there before me was about 180 metres of writhing 4 inch-in-diameter snake trying to recover it’s balance as the bale had pulled it up between it and the next one in the row. The music from Chariots of Fire began to
 play in my head as my leaden feet moved towards the ute, and the breeze cooled
the back of my distended eyeballs. There was no way I was going to make it into the back of the ute, so the bonnet was my only alternative. Simon could not figure out what I was doing scrabbling pathetically up towards the wipers, and having thought that I was fooling around over the success of the the new system, figured out that, in amongst the hyperventilating gasps, I was wheezing
‘HUUUUUUGE snake!!!!!!’
‘Did you see where it went?’ he asks. PLEASE!! In your dreams boyo! I wasn’t sticking around for anything as sensible as that. He got out of the ute and with a pitch fork to comfort him tiptoed around the infected area while I supervised from the roof of the cab. Nothing stirred, so we attached the bale and off we went, marvelling at the decisions to
leave Gigi at home, and to pull the bales over with the ute rather than our muscle power. Sure as eggs is eggs one of us or Gigi would have been bitten.
Simon mulching olive trees in the Salsi Olive Grove.
We unrolled the bale and decided that we would go down to the end of the sausage for the next one, and leave old Snoek in peace. We were backing up to the bale when I looked in my rear view mirror - and there was a HUUUUGe snake wriggling behind the bale. ‘There! There! Snake …’ I yelled. We jumped out and Simon was brave as he tried to see where it had
gone. Couldn’t see a thing, so we attached the bale, rolled her over, and I stood my ground as there was no snake in evidence! Off we went and unrolled that one, and on the way back for the next we decided that since he was down that end of the sausage, we would leave him in peace and take a bale from the top end, but off the other sausage. We backed in, got out and Simon handed me the
pitchfork and said dryly ‘There you go Boadicea…!’ and while he prepared the ropes I set about a gentle prodding with the pitchfork around the bale we wanted to take.
I was totally together. If it was there I would watch and see where it went. There was a tiny little lip of hay about 2 inches high, and I pushed the pitchfork in. Gently. There was a hint of movement and a tiny puff of dust about 6 inches from the point of the pitchfork, so I gave another gentle little prod – and out came his huge head with ‘Whaddya want
this time!’ written all over his face. WELL! I stood my ground – Hah! Boadicea snake,
dropped the pitchfork and blew the most enormous raspberry with her mouth as she leaped into the ute with no steps in between. Simon was brave and stood his ground. He saw where it went! We rolled the bale, turned it round and off we went absolutely dying of laughter at my
bravery and the disgusting noise I had made where anyone normal would have screamed or something!
The rest of the day was uneventful but for the fact that we were more than a little jumpy! Any movement or rustling, a piece of straw brushing Simon’s hat or my own boot toe moving under the hay, and we were airborne - and then rolling around with laughter. We managed to roll all the rest out without seeing him again, then we went home for lunch and decided
that we had earned a nap! We felt that we had achieved having completed our task without having come to blows with the old Snoek.
Joss mulching olives in the Salsi Olive Grove.
 We were sitting having a beer on the front lawn that evening and Denis was, as usual, in attendance for any peanuts and raisins on offer. He stayed on the lawn when Donk (our 18 year old cat) joined us on the table, and Simon observed with delight a butterfly – we really don’t see many of them here.
Almost as he said it, Denis snatched it from the air and ate it! Simon was outraged and hurled bottle tops, corks and abuse at him while, I regret to admit, Mother and I roared with laughter!
Denis joins Joss for a beer after work.
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