Yesterday I was doing some gardening and one of the tasks I really like is to burn coconut branches that fell down out of the trees and all kind of other wood and organic stuff that can be burned.
During the burning of all this, I keep checking the rest of the garden for anything that can be thrown in and I'm well aware of the dangers that just grabbing something can bring with it. Or so I thought.
This little bugger, a scorpion or meleng pong in the Thai language, stung me when I picked up a small piece of wood from a previous fire under which it was hiding.At first I didn't know where the sting came from, it burned pretty hard but I couldn't see a culprit. My main concern was that it was a snake bite but than I saw our little fellow here and I was relieved.
The pain wasn't too bad, more a burning sensation and my wife put balm on it when I ran into the house, asking her how bad it was being stung by a scorpion. Once I was told that I would be survive I grabbed the camera in idle hope of catching the scorpion on film and lucky indeed, there it was, still in a defensive position. waiting to sting me some more if I wanted to.Got these great shots in but a point was driven home by this fellar and I won't be as inattentive anymore. At least, I hope and think!
Camille
9 comments:
Camille , my greatest fear when cleaning and raking and burning leaves is thet I will get bitten by a scorpin or snake , so far I've been lucky , I'm glad you are ok . Did you go to dr. and get it checked ? you're a brave man , and when you finished taking pictures (great ones too ) did you smash his ugly head ? I would have . Malcolm
Hi Malcolm,
It's my own silly behaviour that got me stung! I know better than just to grab without checking first, hence the little fella got to live, since he just did what nature taught him. My wrong in this case and no, I didn't get to go and see a dr. My wife put some balm on the sting area and that helped wonders.
As I enjoy gardening this is also one of my fears (snakes more). I tend to be very careful and make a fair bit of noise (you should hear me singing)when working outside.
Glad you are OK, I have only seen one very small scorpion in my garden but that might be because this area is a fairly dry part of the country?
BTW great pics!
burning is really a bad habit in samui, can't people let nature destroy what has to be destroyed or do some compost instead of making smoke for all the neigbourhood?
well the smoke make the mosquitos go away too. So there is an advantage in that.
Eeeeek! My Husband commented that it looks less like a scorpion and more like a really nasty Lobster. It's huge! Good to see you let him go though Camille. Too often we punish creatures for getting in our way, when really, we're the ones that have disturbed them.
Oh, and in relation to the burning comment. We are not allowed to burn or remove debris from our properties. In February of this year, 200 people died when bushfires tore through our region. The reason for their intensity, so much fuel lying around for the fire to use. We compost, but you can't compost everything. The Australian land has been created where fire is part of a natural cycle, but now there's humans inhabiting, so we either let nature take its course and people die, or we manage the land better allowing both nature to flourish and humans to co-exist in that space, but we can't just let everything run wild.
.... why did I read this!
I don't like the idea of scorpions crawling around here ! We are here in samui on vacation right now ;)
Wij mogen ook graag vuurtje stoken :) en denk je er aan dat er zich ook graag centipedes verstoppen onder de gevallen bladeren? Dat komt nog harder aan! :) Netjes dat ie nog zat wachten om foto's te maken. Van de aanvaller van P. heb ik helaas geen foto's, want die heeft 't niet overleefd ;)
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