The distance between the backsteps of our house and the studio where we sleep is a mere 12 metres, but every metre consists of the rarest and tamest form of vegetation we have on the property; turf lawn. Granted, it’s not much by Australian standards, but what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in desirability as a source of rich grazing pleasure for a sweet gang of red-necked pademelons.
“These impossibly cute little fluff balls are rather fond of Sir Walter Buffalo grass…perhaps too fond, as you will see.”
We laid the turf about three years ago, but despite fecundate growing conditions of late, not one blade of grass has yet been harmed by the cold steel of our dormant mower. The paddies have it covered.
During daylight hours this tiny patch of colonial power projection is owned by tubby little yellow robins and an occasional swarm of red-browed firetails who doubtlessly dream of one day finding even a single seed head. But as afternoon progresses, shadows cast by the studio fall across the lawn. It is then that the first of a bevy of hungry pademelons will saunter up from the gully.
If one was to sit quietly on the back steps, as I sometimes do, one may bear witness to a veritable marsupial insinuation. As my eyes adjust to the diminishing light and the sharp chopping calls of robins echoing out from unseen secret roosts eventually fade into silence, another sound arrives at my ear. Imagine it if you can; the soft snipper of grass, like that of a vintage spiral-blade mower, except these cutting teeth are not steel but mammalian enamel.
On warm nights the lawn receives other visitors, also intent on feasting. Huge serpents take up coiled ambush postures. Muscular heads conceal cunning heat pits along their lower jaw, surveilling the darkness for the tell-tale warmth of nearby pademelons. It’s a case of reptilian persistence and patience verse marsupial wits and agility.
Many is the night we have had to decide whether to intervene in this deadly game of murder-in-the-dark. After watching freshly minted fluff-balls, hardly a day out of mum’s pouch, careen madly about the lawn without a care in the world, it’s devilishly hard not to shoo the pythons back into the rainforest. But without a serious meal, the most massive of our local serpents might not survive the winter.
It’s only 12 metres, but getting to bed some nights is to walk past life and death and a lesson in ethics.