Text 1938, 101 rader
Skriven 2006-06-03 17:08:00 av JOAN MACDIARMID (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JIM WELLER
Ärende: PESTS   60531
=====================
 Hi, Jim,

 JW> YK is home to a semi-wild parrot that takes off on its owner every
 JW> spring but returns to its cage through an open window reliably every
 JW> fall, the first night it freezes.

 That's wild!

 JW> On a vaguely related note, I have just become the owner of two tiny
 JW> mice just because some child's parents refused to take them on. Roslind
 JW> detests all rodents and will have nothing to do with them, so it will
 JW> be up to me to clean the cage and ensure that they do not escape. They
 JW> have been fun so far (two days) and Neekha of course is thrilled.

 Suggestions! Handle them personally a lot, gently of course, so they
 are fully accustomed to human contact. Holding and gentle stroking
 seems to be appreciated. When cleaning the quarters, a rinse with
 baking soda solution does wonders for the smell. The smell is from
 the urine, but the pellets of feces are usually not nasty.

 When I was young, my 2 brothers and I were gifted with 3 pet mice
 by a family friend, who had apparently accustomed them to human
 handling beforehand. Mine was black with a black tail, Steve's was
 black with a pink tail, and the youngest, Tom, got the white one.
 I think I probably did all the cleaning, though. We could take them
 out of the fishbowl and play with them gently at any time and they
 would let us catch them easily and put them back into their cages.
 I thought that qualified me to "keep" mice.

 But later in life, a colleague bought a few mice from a pet shop
 to test a few ideas about mouse behavior (and I should not say
 this, because mice for any research are supposed to be highly
 regulated, though his questions would not harm them). I
 volunteered to help him maintain them based on my earlier pet
 experience. But he wasn't smart enough to screen for gender,
 and soon we had baby mice! When I came to clean the enclosures,
 I moved the young ones to a standard cage, not realizing they
 could squeeze through the standard bars! Suddenly I was in a
 lab full of free young mice not used to handling, and some
 other labs down the hall would not appreciate such an incursion!
 I was alone, and was scrambling about like a cat trying to
 catch these miscreants before they got to the crack under the
 door! But as they hadn't been handled much, when I caught one, it
 usually bit me enough to make me jump enough to let it escape.
 I eventually got them all, I think. But if I had had a cameraman
 filming my mousing that lab, we could have sent it in to
 "America's Funniest Home Videos" and maybe have recouped our
 costs for the whole research venture!

 After that, I told my friend I would not be responsible
 for his mice any more. He had answered his question already,
 so he decided to release them into the woods.

 JW> can't wait for Alex to visit to see how she reacts to them. They have
 JW> become the object of some interesting talks on biology and an excuse to
 JW> delve into higher mathematics. (Mice are social animals; the best setup

 (Yeah, my childhood setup was 3 females, no problem)

 JW> is two females as males will fight. In the presence of one female, two
 JW> males will fight A LOT; there will be fatalities. Neekha guessed why
 JW> without any hints from me. The math part arose when she learned that
 JW> mice mature in 2 months and can have up to 12 babies per month
 JW> thereafter. How many mice would we have in a year if we started with
 JW> one pair?)

 Lessons from whatever comes up, huh? Of course your problem is only
 theoretical, involving the unlimited food supply and nesting space.
 but if she were calculating the risk to a spaceship with limited
 food and spaces, she might be doing that sort of calculation someday.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05

      Title: People Puppy Chow
 Categories: Snack, Chips, Chocolate, Peanut butt, Cereals
      Yield: 1 Servings

    1/4 lb Butter
      1 c  Peanut butter
     12 oz Bag chocolate chips
      1 ea Box krispix cereal
      1 lb Powdered sugar

      Melt the butter, peanut butter, and chocolate chips together.  Pour
  them over 1 box of Krispix (or some other similar cereal).  (note -- recipe
 does not say what size box?)  Mix thoroughly.  Put the chocolate-covered
  cereal into a large coverable container (a big Tupperware bowl -- I mean
 =big= -- works  fine).
      Add 1 pound of powdered sugar.
  Put the lid on, and shake furiously.

      The result looks ugly as all-get-out, but tastes like a little bit of
  Heaven on earth.

  From: Gail Beatrous From: Pat Stockett

MMMMM
 Joan MacDiarmid
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