I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

sewingnut

Brown sugar, flour, oatmeal (had to add something healthy) and BUTTER. Butter baby, all natural sweat cream butter. Can you tell I only bake with butter? No ice cream

1Athena1

Caerus - what a cool story about your Mass Ave escapade and Potomac sanctuary! Where in Mass. Ave?

crazy4carrots

sewingnut -- I agree!  If you're going to go to all the trouble of baking -- pastry, cookies, whatever -- it might as well taste as good as it can, and butter makes it!

Never had any rodents or reptiles as pets -- just goldfish, dogs and cats.  Never thought I could warm up to a rodent but when I met my fiance's family for the first time, his little 9-yr-old niece brought me her pet rat, AND I HELD IT!!!  She decided then and there that I would be a good aunt, and she and I are very close all these years later!   But....I turned her into a Cat lover, and she gave up Rats (thank goodness!).

otter

I had one of those dime store turtles, too.  Most of them are baby red-eared sliders.  Mine lived in a small plastic dish with an island in the middle and a plastic palm tree.  My turtle did not like the freeze-dried brine shrimp I was told to feed it, and it died after a few weeks.  Little did I know that turtles will eat almost anything -- those dime store turtles loved meal worms, earthworms, fruit, greens, all that stuff.  A high school classmate showed me 4 or 5 dime store turtles she'd had for years.  She kept them in large roasting pans, and fed them anything they would eat.

Tonight's lesson:  how to tell the sex of a box turtle.  We need to thank Caerus-Sunflowers for submitting this important question.  Here are the traits that distinguish male from female box turtles:

Male box turtles are often larger and more colorful than females of the same age.  The shells of the males tend to be slightly flatter than those of the females, whose shells are more dome-shaped (rounded).  The plastron (bottom shell) of a male box turtle is generally concave, while the plastron of a female box turtle is flat.  (Please hold your follow-up questions about this trait until after class.)  Males generally have longer and wider tails than females.  Finally, the eyes of male box turtles are usually red or dark orange; the eyes of female box turtles are brown.

Curious readers can find more info at these sites:  http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/midorcas/research/Contribute/box%20turtle/boxinfo.htm#sex or http://www.boxturtlesite.info/malefemale.html or http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/turtles/Tercar/tercar.html

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. 

otter

AnnNYC

hillck -- SO beautiful!  I'm in love!

Thank you Dr. Otter -- will we need to know this for the final? 

[Did you have students who asked you that?  Did it drive you nuts?]

BarbaraA

Cindy they are so  sweet! Especially Rocky. What a cutie!

Bren-2007

Cindy .. I love your babies!  They are wonderful.  I'll try to find some pics of my three dogs.  They don't like to sit still for pics.

hugs,

Bren

kira1234

Cindy, Your babies are so sweet looking. One of these days I'll figure out how to post pictures.

Talking about rodents. When my kids were young I decided after their hamsters had died to get them Guinea pigs. They were cute enough, but out cat lady thought they were her pets. She would sit on their cage lid and purr at them. It was the funniest thing to see a cat purring at rodents.

Wabbit

Cindy ...  I think they are all photogenic.  Kashi looks like a show dog posing ... George has that 'I am cat ... adore me but remember your place human' look ... and Gracie obviously owns the joint.  Lovely fur family you have!

BarbaraA

I had a koi pond when I lived in DC. Never had any cats get my fish but this $%#^ing great blue heron sure did. I came home one day to fish floating, having been stabbed by the $%^^#. So I go an air gun from a friend and used split peas as ammo and waited for the *&^% to show up. There I sat in the upstairs bath waiting. He finally showed up and I winged the pea at him. Off he flapped and never came back. They were my PETS and he killed them. Wahh. I cry whenever I think about it.

208sandy

We had a koi pond in South Carolina - didn't last long - the labs next door tunneled under the fence one day and decided to go for a swim - oops!  Fish expired before we got home and discovered the invasion.

Sandy

Enjoyful

Good morning, all!

I need to find a picture of my little buddies and post it.  If only I can remember how to do that.

Diane and I met up for dinner last night and I had a great time listening to Diane's stories.  She's hilarious!   And tough, and smart, and beautiful.  Hugs, Diane!

Barb, I'm going to go kick a blue heron in honor of your koi.  Though to blue herons, a koi pond must seem like a McDonald's.  

Hope everyone has a great day!  Off to see if I can find a pic of my buddies.

E

BarbaraA

Cindy it isn't your fault. Cats will be cats. They mighty not miss one koi. Well, I would since I named them all.

Enjoyful

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Bren-2007

This is Tank. Oops .. I have to resize the pic.  He's my baby and only 1 1/2 years old.

This is Maggie and Winston:

Enjoyful

Those are my boys.  No idea why the photo shows up twice.

Enjoyful

TANK.  That's so perfect!

rosemary-b

I can't find a picture of my cat. Maybe I'll take one tonight. She is mostly Maine Coon and is very fluffy

kira1234

My son and his girl frined are in the process of building a koi pond. I never even thought about the animals eating the fish. I don't think they would be happy if they wee eaten after all the work of building it.

They have decided to have their wedding reception in their yard rather than spending the money for a hall. They are building the pond along with many paths throughout the yard. When they are done it will be lovely. Many lovely sitting areas with plants flowers ect. She is just so gifted with design I wish I had half her talent.

rosemary-b

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends.

Wabbit

Kira ... what an excellent idea!  Instead of one time use of a hall they will end up with a beautiful backyard forever.

E and Bren ... assume you are working on re-posting your pictures.

The only fish any of my cats ever caught was off the kitchen counter once.  Caught the white fluffy angelic looking one heading down the hallway with a fish fillet in her mouth. 

Bren-2007

Enjoyful .. I love your guinea pigs!  They're so cute!  But where did their picture go???

Bren

Enjoyful

Bren, you have a pack!  Did I know you had so many dogs?

THanks for the reminder, Rosemary.  Happy happy Canada Day!  I love Canada so much I bleed red.

:-s

E

IronJawedBCAngel

Wanted to wish a Happy Canada Day to my sisters in the Great White North also!  As two of my children were born there, we have always celebrated Canada Day and Canadian Thanksgiving, so we will light some sparklers in your honor tonight. Slainte!

No Koi pond here, but be careful taking shots or kicks at the herons!  As beloved as I am sure your Koi are, the blue heron is a protected species, and people have been arrested and paid huge fines for doing what they thought necessary to protect their property.

Poor kitty was just doing what cats do, and probably enjoyed every morsel of that fish head!

revkat

We had an old irrigation reservoir near our house (my family raised citrus until the cost of water got too high) and put a bunch of koi in it -- they got to be really big. Then the city decided to build a huge underground covered water tank in that location so we had to drain the water. My nephews couldn't stand the idea of the koi dying so they caught them and took them to a koi rescue organization. 

There's someone for everyone. 

Anonymous

OTTER!!!!!

Thank you.  I am sure I rescued a female   She had a very high dome, otherwise I think I might have thought it was a rock in the road - she was crawling all over the back seat of my car, and seemed VERY happy when she finally had fields of grass under her feet & before her.

I also found the tiniest little milk snake in my garden.  Must have been almost newly born, let me hold him/her in my hand, kept going back to the same patch of chocolate mint plants - then a few weeks later it was gone.  I am HOPING he/she is living in my basement ( crawl space under my cabin) and munching happily on mice ( looked up what they eat) - so those little furry creatures will stop crawling into my car & EATING wires.  Very nasty habit these rural mice have.

Bren-2007

Caerus .. I can't believe you touched a snake!  I almost touched a little bright green one, but I chickened out.  They like to eat bugs.  The other snakes I've had here are huge black ones (4 to 5 ft) ... they scare me to pieces but are harmless.  I'm glad they can't get into the basement.  My bug man puts out mice killer in the basement when he sprays for bugs.

Cindy .. that's so funny that your cat ate the center cream out of the Twinkies!  Pretty smart cat!

Bren

Bren-2007

I forgot to wish all our friends to the north a Happy Canada Day!  I can't wait to meet you guys.  I got my passport stuff all sent in.  My picture looks like a mug shot of some old lady I don't recognize.  ha!

Bren

revkat

That's what all passport photos look like. I look like I've just been arrested for knocking over a 7-11.

BarbaraA

Happy Canada Day my Canadian friends!

IJBCA, I know they are protected. That's why I used a half of a dried pea as ammo. Just wanted to scare him.