It's beginning to feel like the summer of neverending mowing. The rain makes the grass grow super fast and turns the yard into an unruly jungle. As soon as there's a long enough break in the weather for it to dry out a little I'm out there with the mower. Rinse and repeat.
I had to mow again today, just to catch it before it got too high and became a problem again. It took around 3 hours, and is not finished yet because I ran out of fuel.
I had a big fright though when I ran over this guy. At first I thought it was a snake, then realised it was a juvenile blue tongue lizard. It was about 3cm across it's middle, they're quite tubby things. I then had a second fright that I'd actually hit it with the mower and it was dead or hurt. It moved and looked okay - phew! The grass is quite dense there and I had the mower set high so I'd gone straight over it. I moved it over to a safe spot by the garden beds.
This is what a fullgrown one would look like, and the bright blue tongue that gives them their name. They're good in the garden as they eat snails. I was really happy to see this one as we had a really huge one thst lived under the mango trees for years but it disappeared during a long dry spell.
What's even better was I later found another slightly smaller one along the fence line. It appears the blue tongues have moved back in.
I only saw brownish scales through the grass at first and this was what I was worried I'd found. The pic is a baby eastern brown snake I saw not far outside the yard. The one in the picture is tiny, about the length of my foot but still deadly. I'd expect any I came across in the yard to be much larger than this, so very thankful it was a lizard.
I also had an Ibis visitor, affectionately (?) known as "Bin Chickens" as they like to forage in rubbish bins. This one was picking through the fallen mangos gobbling up the grubs that had surfaced to feast on the fruit. Pardon the pixelated photos - I couldn't get any closer without scaring it away.
It must have been finding lots of good things because it didn't seem phased by the mower noise. It hung around for quite some time and only left when I started mowing a little closer.
I'm tired and sore tonight from pushing the mower in the heat. Off to bed. I just hope the grass doesn't grow too much while I sleep.
Until next time,
@Sammie
