Siri in Isolation

There was the time we were chatting in the kitchen with Helinho, who’s been working at our house for more than thirty years. He turned to leave and then said, “Uiii!” stopping in his tracks. Holding Zaffy back we inched forward to see what had startled him and saw a rather long boa constrictor stretched across our outside area, quite beautiful with clear markings down her ( jiboía  in Portuguese is feminine) back and measuring perhaps a meter and a half. What to do? In the course of our forty years in this house we’ve never seen a snake and so we called the fire brigade. Eventually two firemen appeared with a long grappling stick and a large container. The poor snake hissed loudly when she was finally caught - it had taken a couple of tries - and then they eased her into the container and assured us she’d be set free in the rain forest.   The firemen were back several months later when a porcupine with long yellow-tipped quills made his way down to the service area and took re...