Garden Railway Forum

Melbournesparks wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2024 1:33 pm Hello fellow enjoyer of venemous snakes. Not so much for eating though, the tiger snakes are an important part of the local ecosystem and a protected species.

I think they make the top 10 for most venemous snakes in the world, along with the eastern brown snake.

That's a good looking Tiger! My wife had a step dad back in the day, a real desert rat. Well, he would rescue rattlesnakes from road strikes and what not. At one point he had 13 rattlesnakes in several cages around the house. Some wouldn't eat in captivity, one of those being a Tiger and one being a 6' Diamondback.
He thought it would be cool to see who this scrawny kid was who was dating his daughter and have me hold down the diamond back while he was force feeding it an egg soaked rat. That guy had nerves of steel, Nam does that to a guy I have heard. My wife always had helped him but it was my first time. Guess I passed the test that day.
He also had me catch a tiger one evening out camping, under his direction I pulled it off. I don't do that anymore.
I prefer just to observe them being they're not cuddly like a rabbit or a deer.
Edit: I see you were speaking about a different breed of "Tiger Snake". Sorry about the confusion, ours have rattles.

Don't think I've ever seen a Tiger with such prominent stripes. The ones I come across are much darker with far less prominent stripes. Interesting, I guess you have ground water somewhere close.
Grant.

Don't think I've ever seen a Tiger with such prominent stripes. The ones I come across are much darker with far less prominent stripes. Interesting, I guess you have ground water somewhere close.
Grant.
PS had to laugh, when i saw the diesel towing the cage I thought "no way will that contain that little fella!"

Bad Droid wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2024 4:02 pm Edit: I see you were speaking about a different breed of "Tiger Snake". Sorry about the confusion, ours have rattles.

Yeah different tiger snake. I like the way the North American ones have audible warning devices though, very safe!

LNR wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2024 3:01 am Don't think I've ever seen a Tiger with such prominent stripes. The ones I come across are much darker with far less prominent stripes. Interesting, I guess you have ground water somewhere close.
Grant.
PS had to laugh, when i saw the diesel towing the cage I thought "no way will that contain that little fella!"

Luckily ours are prominently striped, though there's regional variations that make them look almost like brown snakes. This one was well fattened on the frogs that live in the pond a little bit further down the line.

The cage is a type of bulk weed wagon, used for collecting weeds for the chickens.

dudeface wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2024 2:50 am If you can't decide, how 'bout Diamondback, Prickly Pear & Southwestern. Edit- or Diamondback & Prickly Pear (South)Western - kinda like D&RGW....

I've always liked the idea of copying the older D&RGW logo, but inserting a cactus and or a mesa or something where their trees/mountain were.
I found a logo of a prickly pear that I think could be altered a bit, then name added around the perimeter. Lucky for me I have an artist friend that loves projects like these, she volunteered for this task.
I'll still need to play around with decals and or dry transfers until I get something that I can deal with.

And speaking about Prickly Pear....
We gathered up a bucket of prickly pear fruit, it's all very ripe right now and the family land across the road has a couple thousand acres of hillside that these cactus love to grow on. The bucket took maybe 45 minutes to collect... We blanch them for a bit then run them through a Breville processor. It separates skin, spines and little thorns from the juice.


I reduced the juice down and make a syrup out of some of it. It has an amazing flavor. Almost like a cross between a blackberry and a marionberry.
It also makes a mean margarita.. Next batch we will freeze the juice and make wine with it this winter.

Finally have all perimeter fencing up on both the 2 and 4 acreage plots. The H Braces in the corners and the gate posts are all steel pipe, sunk 3' into rock then concrete. Everything in-between are 7' heavy duty T Post driven deep. Attached to everything is 5 strings of barbed wire with two vertical stays within every span of two posts. Next will be automating main gate for the 2 acres (house). I'll set it up for auto open close for deliveries and disable it at night. And Fobs for our rigs.
I've added solor powered remote sensors to the approach to the gates, they give off their own tone so I have a heads up on visitors.. and rabbits. It's more for deliveries than anything, we get no visitors out here. Also added two more solar powered auto tracking cams, also w night vision. I'm welding up the brackets now, I'll weld them to main gate post and one on approach gate post. We have two of the same cams at front doorway and back yard, we get some great animal videos!
I was also adopted by this funny looking dog. These things run in "squadrons" and they're everywhere. They really like the yard.