Peeping tom busted

A Huon Valley local drops in for a visit
One small step for man … one giant step for anyone not paying attention

My kids were enjoying a school holiday movie when they saw something staring at them from the other side of the glass.

It was a big tiger snake moving along the brickwork.

It was either very curious or staring at its own reflection in the windows.

I went out to move it along. It was not happy to see me, doing the cobra thing with its neck.

We rarely see tiger snakes, but when we do its not around the dams, as you might expect, but at the house.

A few years ago we had a small one banging its nose against the back door.

We had a bigger one lying next to the bins, which my wife discovered as she took out a rubbish bag.

We forget they are around and get lazy watching our step.

Suffice to say, the recent visitor made us wary again, especially in warm weather.

We hear secondhand stories about horses, dogs and cattle getting bitten in farmer’s paddocks, but it’s not happened here, as far as I know, and we have many pets and other animals roaming around.

As a former Adelaide resident, I found SA’s eastern brown snakes more concerning, as they were common, very fast, and actively hunted in daylight.

The tiger snakes here seem to just mooch around, until disturbed.

Out in the forests, around the button grass and rivers, they are abundant. We often see them while walking.

They move quickly at times and one raced out onto a bush track in front of us, presumably while hunting.

We also see them on roads.

Tassie has two other snake varieties, but I’ve never seen a copperhead or whip snake in the Huon.

Kubota TG1860 mower alternative belts

Keeping the grass short is important in fire country in summer.

I run a Kubota TG1860 ride-on mover, which I have kept going without resorting to buying pricey OEM parts.

The alternative belts that worked for me are an 11A0890 on the fan, B2692 on the 48″ deck, and a B57 kevlar on the clutch.

I’ve added a relay to the starter solenoid to make sure the starter motor gets 12v+ every time, otherwise it just “clicks”.

The stop solenoid packed it in so I ran a stainless wire though to the engine and tied it to a lever to turn it off.

Replacing the deck bearings has proved easy enough though a bit time-consuming.

Keeping the deck going has required welding of small cracks on the outer edges.

Some day the diesel injectors and pump will need work and it will then be out of my hands, fingers crossed until then.

Can always bring the sheep and horses in when the mower is down and grass is growing.

Tasmanian Life