Odds and ends

 So I looked to see what I had in the picture file, and the answer was- not much.  Mainly due to a week in which we got abou 4 to 5 inches of rain across about three days, and a work week that led me to say at one point, "If stupid people exploded, this place would be a nuclear disaster!"  Our last real walk was apparently back on the 25th...

Of course, the cardinal ducked just as I snapped

Early turtles at the Swamp

Don't ask.

A few days later, the usual Bob's bar snap to put on BeerAdvocate:

Took me three tries to hit it when the lights were on...

And yesterday, I had what was going to be a really neat picture of Squirrel that I missed by that much...

And that rounds pictures out.

I thought about sharing pics of me feeding Squirrel her breakfast, but opted not to because she has much better eyesight in shadow (thus I turn the lights off and open the shades when I feed her), and figured the flash would play hob with that.  The proceedure for her breakfast goes like this:

1- Get out her cage full of little crickets. Try to extract 5 or so for the meal.

2- Throw them in a baggy and play "shake and bake" with a Vitamin D powder, trying to coat them enough for Squirrel to get the nutrition, but not enough to clog their pores and kill them before they can be eaten.

This morning, I lost a teeny tiny one in the process, and by the time I remembered it escaped, I have no idea where it got to.  I may have eaten it myself by now.

3- Toss the powdered beasts into a cage into which I will place Squirrel, who is currently in her log, thinking musically, "I'm dreaming, of a White Cricket..."

4- Wash hands with no-perfume soap.  You have to wash before you touch her so you don't give her something, and after so she don't give you something.

5- Get into her cage, remove her log, and convince her that this gigantic hand now in front of her face is safe to climb on.

6- Drop her off in the feeding cage, and watch the fun!  She ate six today.  The first one she grabbed, though, she only got one leg.  When she tried to get more in her mouth, it did an acrobatic flip right over her head!  It wasn't so lucky the next time though.

7- Put away all other stuff and check into her water situation while she dines on.  Yesterday she somehow acquired a gnat in her big pond, still can't figure that one out because we haven't seen a gnat in months, so I dumped it and filled fresh from her filtered water ( because we live in Fort Wayne, and only the thoroughly poisoned system can handle our water.)

8- Done eating?  Get her out and pet her for a bit.  She always feels at first like she peed on me, but it's just that she's cold-blooded, and so she feels- cold.

9- Persuade her it's safe to climb off that same gigantic hand onto her log, replace her lid and turn on her lights, which keep her climate at around 95F and 35 humid.