Spring, well over a decade ago. I head up the rise before the fruit trees as a tiger snake moves across the path made by my regular round of the tree paddock, a cherished place transformed more than ten years before this sighting, from a barren stretch of grass and rocks. I jump back when I see the snake, two metres in one movement, an impossible feat when I’m not full of fear. It takes a jump like that for my body to know a particular place as snake habitat. Spring is when snakes move their slowest, when they are seen more than they are heard. I still tread that part of the paddock carefully when the sun starts to sting.

Places I understand as snake habitats close to the house, in reverse chronological order: the manna gum stump at the rise at the back of the house, the blackwood when it stood high near the shed, the side garden near the mandarin tree, the side garden between the rosemary and the camellia, the rise before the fruit trees, the gap between the back of the shed and the nectarine tree, the outside toilet. Five decades of sightings and each snake I see changes how I live in this territory that is not mine to own.