Tortoise adventure

Remember how just the other day I was saying I needed an adventure, well be careful what you wish for. I got myself quite a little adventure today.

My dads tortoise escaped apparently. He realized this morning that his tortoise, Wimby, hadn't eaten yesterdays food so he went looking around for him. Seems he found a way into the neighbors large yard.

I go over in the morning and first thing I do is, of course check on the little box turtles, they were all happy, healthy, and contained.

Next we, me and my brother, take a walk around the perimeter of dads yard to look for places Wimby could have escaped from and around the yard in general to make sure Wimby isn't just being cool and hiding out somewhere causing drama for no reason.

I find a pretty cool spider web.

Then there is the cat tail that has been in the yard for quite a while (months), not sure why no one has done anything with it. This is the first time I've seen it in person and I have no idea how they didn't notice the whole leg near or that it has a pelvis bones still attached too. (It's probably because no one is willing to look at it for too long or closely like I am.)

Next we take a walk to the corner of the yard and on the way I notice cat ribs and backbone. So clean!

One more step and I see a leg with paw still intact.

I have no explanation or know what to say about this stuff, I find it cool but it's kinda creepy that there are cat parts in the yard, and that they have been there for a while.

We find where we think is the only spot the tortoise could have gotten out and it leads to the neighbors yard, who have a MUCH larger yard with a lot more trees and brush and leaf litter. So I'm standing at the fence calling Wimby, yes he's a tortoise but he does come to people calling him especially since he is a pig and loves food and knows people feed him.

The fence reaches to my neck and it's on a bit of a slope so I'm hanging on to the fence to stabilize myself. I lose grip and my footing at the same time and slip down a bit and the bottom of my jaw is right above this beauty.
Luckily didn't hit it very hard but it didn't feel very good either. Leave it to me to have the soft part under my jaw right above a perfect place to get impaled!

My brother goes over to the neighbors, the proper way instead of hopping the fence and we eventually end up walking around their whole yard twice looking for Wimby. I knew I was going to be doing this but still when I left the house in the morning THESE are the shoes I put on! Seriously what is wrong with me, how stupid am I (don't answer that).
I am walking around in a yard with pretty much every surface you can think of, lots of twigs and thick leaf litter in an area that there are TONS of snakes and spiders and my feet are just SCREAMING taste me don't I look tasty!

We walk the whole yard twice, calling Wimby the whole time. Then we head out their front drive and take a walk down the street. On the way back my brother says, wow I just got REALLY dizzy, I tell him he better not pass out on me because I am so not carrying him anywhere, he may be my younger brother but he definitely isn't my little brother.

When we get back we decide it is lunch time. Have I ever said how much my brother loves bread, he does, A LOT!
After lunch and a stop back at my place for proper shoes we decide to hop the back fence and see if Wimby is hanging out there somewhere.

I sure hope he's not hiding out in the cactus cause I am NOT venturing into them to find him.

I also hoped he didn't decide to go for a long walk in this field. (or in my worst case scenario somehow manage to cross the field, the rather large road, and get through another fence and decide to take a "nap" on the train tracks. I am pretty sure he is big enough to cause a train derailment, especially if we were to put signs up with MY phone number on them, yeah that would not be good, not good at ALL!)
Now it was time to make signs. We found some spray paint but that wasn't going to work (I may or may not have been holding the can towards me when first trying to spray). So we went to the store down the street first to get us some LARGE markers. They didn't have LARGE markers so we got some larger sharpies and went to work.

We took one sign and put it at the top of the street and went to pick my husband up from work and get slurpees, it's hot being in the sun walking around all day looking for a tortoise. They had Barq's Rootbeer slurpees! BARQ'S ROOTBEER SLURPEES!!!! SO F'ING DELICIOUS and REFRESHING.

With the signs all made, nailed to stakes (which we later had to use wire and tape because hammering them in the rock hard ground shook the cardboard right off the stake) we set out to put up more. As we were hammering in the first sign we got a call from someone who's neighbor found a tortoise. They didn't know what to do with it so they called the humane society. We called the humane society, who were already closed so we have to wait until to tomorrow to get our tortoise back.

Not exactly the adventure I wanted but it was an adventure and it's not over yet. Hopefully it will be rather easy to get the tortoise back and I don't have to go through a million and one things to get Wimby back home.

Oh and you know what this brilliant redhead did, she went on an all day adventure WITHOUT sunscreen, yeah I'm just slightly red now. Love the red shoulder, the tank top strap, and then the diagonal bra strap! Luckily I'm not the typical super fair skinned red head and color like this usually fades into a nice tan (yeah cause those lines are nice).
This made me realize how pale I really am, how much sun I really don't get, and why I always need to remember sunscreen if I am going to be outside. Stupid stupid stupid. I've never been one to avoid the sun but I've never been a sun worshiper, especially since I've gotten tattooed, don't wanna prematurely age and fade those babies. My poor mermaid is all sorts of tan herself now.

Picture post

Here are some pictures I have taken of animals at work and home recently. I keep meaning to post some of these as a Wordless Wednesday post but can never remember so I am posting them now or I may never get to them.

Lots of baby snakes.

Baby Eurydactylodes, such cute little geckos.

Atticus curled up on a big but tiny to him bed.

Sweet Maya girl waiting for me to finish up so we can play

My kingsnake

My red eared slider Sam relaxing

and his tank mate Ella relaxing

My cat Otsego relaxing on my brother, yes she is relaxed...she's odd like that

My brothers cat, Anubis

His other cat, Ramesses

DIY cat beds

The use of this type of bed totally depends on what your cat likes.  I have 2 beds the cats love and 2 they have never used and a few more that they occasionally use, I think I have way too many beds for them as it is, oh well.  I decided I would no longer buy beds for my cats, I also had to take away the fuzzy ones they loved because my big kitty would pull at the fluff and eat it. I swear sometimes I think her belly is huge because it's full of non food items, but she has had belly x-rays recently so I know that is not the case.  

Whenever there are boxes around my kitties love getting in them and chewing on them, don't know what that is about.  They also love fleece so I put one of our fleece blankets in a flattish box and it is my big kitties new favorite beds.

I then had a regular size box and make a big squishy bed out of it by putting old sweaters and things in it and well they avoided it like the plague.  While I was cleaning today I decided to cut that box in half and use the bottom half as a bed, put some fleece blankets in it and had the big kitty take it for a test sleep.  She loved it and while she was in the bottom half I look over and the little one is in the top half.  So I got two beds for the price of one, well for no price at all actually.  I don't know why we had the box but it was from my husbands work.  I didn't put any blankets in and the top half of the box and the little one seems to love it so now they have their choice of padded or non padded.  

Here they are in their new box beds:

If you are the artistic type you could decorate them and they you wouldn't have cardboard boxes around your house but I am not and anything I did would probably be more of an eye sore than the sight of a box. 

I also found a use for old pants, apparently the little one loves sleeping on old pants. I gathered up a bunch of old pairs and didn't know what to do with them, they were holey in places and ways that can't really be salvaged, since I have ZERO sewing skills I wasn't sure what to do with them. I left them lying around and the kitten just loved lying on them.  I have my childhood toy box next to my bed and it holds my t-shirts and would get pile with things on top to the point I would not longer be able to get into it so I wanted to do something with it that was useful but also let me still get into it.  I ended up putting the pairs of old pants on it and it is where the kitten curls up every night.  Someone with sewing skills could probably make a blanket or something that looks nicer than pairs a pants laid on a toy box but for me it works, it's in a dark corner of my bedroom. In the picture you can see the indent the little one has made on the top left of the picture and the collection of black fur she has left too. 

While I was gone

So life back at home still goes on when I am not around, surprising isn't it, haha.  The right turn only lane three blocks from my home was taken out.  That's all I have noticed really...besides my cat and that is where this blog really starts.  

A bit of background, my 7 year old cat, Otsego, has some neurotic issues I guess, she basically has Bald Belly Syndrome.  She chews her fur off of her belly or whatever area she decides at the time.  We treat it with Obsession Remedy from Spirit Essences, works wonders.  She stopped chewing and grew back all her fur.  We were running low on it before I left and lowered her treatment and she was fine, we then got a new bottle of Skin Soother this time which is suppose to help treat chewing as well and we got it over Obsession because our 2 year old kitten, Harley Quinn, has itchy flaky skin and figured we could kill two birds with one stone.  

So while I was gone at tennis apparently Otsego started chewing again and pretty bad.  Now the question is was it because of the different formula or because I was gone and she couldn't deal with the absence of me?  Isn't that more of a dog thing, aren't cats suppose to be more independent?  My husband was home the whole time, almost literally the whole time.  He only worked one day while I was gone and home the rest of the time, he took a staycation while I was gone. So here are some pics of the baldy.  Let's hope all gets better now that I am home and we don't have to buy another bottle.  

RIP Smoosh

Smoosh my green Iguana died last night. She had not been doing so well for the last few weeks, being quite lazy for her but of course still with her major attitude. Yesterday she didn't have her attitude and I knew it wouldn't be long. She was an old thing and had quite the interesting life. I believe I got her in 2000 or 2001 from Wild Wonders and they had had her since about 1997 if I remember correctly and I don't really know what happened to her previous to that. She was pretty much the same size from 1997 till now so she was not a super young Iguana but she didn't have the greatest life previous to that. She has no spines on her back, her dewlap is all messed up and she was a tiny girl for her age, and her mouth was all messed up probably from Metabolic Bone Disorder, lack of calcium and other vital vitamins (that's why we call her Smoosh, her smooshed up face), among other things. She had a pretty good life with me so I like to think the majority of her life was good and just a smaller bit of it was bad. Here are a few picture of her.

Work Benefits

The benefits I get at work are free reptiles. I've collected a few, a beautiful black and white California Kingsnake,






a vibrant Fire Skink,






and an angry Green Iguana.






I have also acquired other species from various places but not directly from work, but if I did not work with reptiles I am pretty sure I would not have any of these, not for not wanting but of all the animals I have right now I have only bought one and that turned into a big ordeal. Our bought Rose Hair Tarantula produced herself a big ol' egg sac a few weeks after we got her!! That even freaked me out!! I enjoy the company of all these creatures, well not really the actual company since I don't actually handle any of them but I do enjoy caring for them. I could have said no to any of them and all but the snake were me specifically asking for them.

Recently my husband has been the one coming home with things from work. He works at Directed Electronics, they also own Polk Audio. He bought me a sweet little ipod dock, miDock Portfolio Stiletto, last year and I use it at work where space is limited. Then he won an I-sonic in a raffle drawing when the company first acquired Polk. When Polk came out with their I-sonic 2 he was able to trade in his original. Then he won a Sirius Soloist at this years Christmas party and then employees were given a miDock Studio. At the Christmas party people were also given FM Voyagers, we had already bought one so now we have 3. I guess they are discontinuing this product so they were just trying to unload them. He has also won been given other things over the years and has sold them to friends for ridiculously low prices.

It is kind of ironic that we are the ones with these things. Not that I don't like them, I did go out and buy 2 of the things. I do like techie things, I keep up with the latest but I don't acquire them regularly. I have gaming consoles, I play World of Warcraft regularly but I do try and limit my intake of things especially in the past few years. It just hit me today as I was putting boxes of audio devices out of the way that we have all these things and didn't technically want the majority of them. I'm not complaining I am just wondering, is this normal or are we "lucky". What do I do with these things now. The I-sonic isn't really something I could sell, it has a few buggy issues but it's a device thing on a whole, we actually returned our first one because of it but this one does it too.

Which brings me to another thing I wanted to talk about. Vampires. I LOVE vampire stories, but I HATE vampire energy. I read an article the other day, Lowering the Cost of Play. It basically went through the top gaming consoles and how much power they consume and what hit me was how it's not so easy to really turn them off. I have experienced this with my Wii, when you press the power button to turn it off it goes into a semi-standby mode. It's power light turns from green to yellow. If you really want to turn it off you have to hold the power button for a few seconds and then the light turns red. Even then it is still drawing power just like almost everything else we own in this day and age. The Wii however is the console which uses the least amount of power by a whole hell of a lot.

In my home everything but my cable box and Tivo are on power strips that get turned off when they aren't in use. It works great, it is not that difficult to adjust to, just have to remember to turn the power strip on. It is a bit difficult for casual guests that come over and want to microwave something, they go over to it and push a million and one buttons and THEN ask why it's not working, it's not plugged in. The looks I have gotten are pretty funny.

This is where the problem arises for the I-sonic and I'm sure there are some other devices that would have these problems. The TV takes about 5 seconds to "warm" up before I can actually turn it on but it's not an issues at all. It is a vcr/dvd/tv combo so there is a lot of things that need to be engaged. The I-sonic on the other hand turns on right away and you can press two or three buttons but then it freezes for a few minutes sometimes. It is pretty annoying. It works long enough for me to turn it on put my ipod in it and change the source but I rarely can get to the ipod source and then a few minutes later it starts to function. If I do get it to the ipod it does play and I can listen to the ipod but I can't adjust the volume or skip or stop it through the I-sonic. I can pause the actual ipod but still no volume control. The worst part is that it actually plays and because I press the buttons a few times before I realize it's not working, when the "freeze" is over it changes source and volume or whatever I might have pressed. Quite annoying and that is why the I-sonic is now boxed up and probably won't come out for a while.

Another issue that I find intriguing and makes me not want to buy technology at all is the "Playstation War". Here is an article on it and I will let you read and think about it for yourself, Inside Africa's PlayStation War.

Cat Proof(ish) Christmas Tree

I can't have any plants in my home because my fat cat tries to eat them. Really sucks since my sister-in-laws family are florists and would supply me with an endless supply of beautiful bouquets year round. Sucks even more around Christmas time because there is no having any sort of tree.

A few years ago I got a small fake tree, one that has fiber optic lights built in, there are fiber optic "needles" among the fake plastic "pine needles" in the branches and they change color, looks kinda cool. Well we put it up and within a day the fat one had found her way to it. Isn't she just so cute chewing on plastic and fiber optic, can't be good for her.

We can't even have anything that looks like fake plants. Nothing resembling a plant. She loves to chew on the fake plants I have for my fish tank and/or reptile tanks. She is a weird one.

So I have given up on Christmas tree in my home. We don't do much for Christmas at our place anyways so it's not a big deal but it would be nice to have a bit of the season in our home.

I check my email the other day and Low Impact Living's newsletter is about a cardboard Christmas tree. I think that might be able to pretty much survive in my home. Granted my cats, both of them, are what we call cardboard vampires, thank you Jerry Cantrell. Let me explain, they love to chew on cardboard and it leaves puncture marks. Something Jerry Cantrell observed a cat do and thought of the term cardboard vampire and subsequently named a group he toured with. They did all covers it was great, but back to the Christmas tree. So I could bring that into my home and the bottom portion could be kindly "decorated" by my cats and I could decorate the top portion myself. It could probably even survive a few years before I would need a new one.