You know it's hot...

...when your tropical lizard forsakes his tropically-heated room (well, temperately-located room heated to tropical temperatures at great cost to The Mommy), and shuns even the flannel and down nest he so favors, to sleep someplace less bloody effin' hot! (I have lost track of the number of days we have been sweltering with days over 100F and nights not much cooler than 65F.)



In case you're sweltering, too, keep in mind that our critters also suffer from temps that are too hot for them. I have some suggestions (that do not include sleeping in the bottom of the bookcase) for herps that can be used for other types of critters, too, in my Microclimates for Your Reptiles article.

Note to self:

Remember to keep Mike's claws trimmed.

Because Mike is usually completely relaxed when I hold and carry him, I don't notice when the sharp pointy extension that grow off the main part of each claw grows long enough to do some serious damage should Mike decide to dig in.

As he did the other night.

Our nightly routine has been long established. Most evenings, he climbs down from his basking area, makes one last pass at his food dish, and heads off to my bedroom, where he climbs up into the bed, secreting himself under the covers. There I let him stay until 9PM or so, when I go haul him out and put him back to sleep in his room.

He always reminds me of a very young child who fell asleep in the car or in the living room or wherever, whose mom or dad picks her up and carries her to bed, without the child ever waking up. Mike pretty much did the same, or at least faked it well, keeping his eyes closed and body completly relaxed, legs still down along side his body in the classic "swimmer" position.

Until a couple of nights ago. He was not just more wakeful, but cranky-wakeful, not happy that I was relocating him from the soft down and flannel nest that is my bed to his heated throw-rug-and-towel-and pillowed nest. When I went to put him down, he grabbed on to me, with the result that one of his hind claws scraped along my upper chest, from clavicle nearly to my armpit.



Interestingly enough, if you look closely just above the scratch (yes, it bled, and yes, it appears to be slightly infected, and yes, I'm taking care of it topically), you will see a white line that runs at a 45 degree angle towards my neck. That would be from a green iguana scratch many years ago. Thanks to the autoimmune craziness caused by multiple tick borne infections, I get some really interesting scarring...

Of course, with Mike, it doesn't really matter how well I keep his claws trimmed because I can't trim his scales. And I'm not talking about the sharp dorsal crest that runs along his back from his neck to the tip of his tail. No, I'm talking about all of his scales, except the ones on his head, gular skin, and upper chest. Here's what his scales do when Mike slides sideways off my arm:



So, how does an animal so well adapted to the sandy rocky debris-strewn ground Cyclura evolved in come to relish, nay, demand sleeping in a cushy bed? One of Nature's enduring mysteries...

You'll have noted the gap between my post on the murdered blue iguanas and this one. For quite a while, I could not bring myself to post my usual breezy posts, as the thought of what was done to those iguanas sickened me, as it still does. But as the people of the Cayman Islands are moving on, building more secure enclosures, increasing security, and raising money to continue the ongoing conservation efforts, so shall I.

Six Blue Iguanas Murdered

I am taking a break here from my usual lighthearted take on life with my reptiles and assorted other creatures, so be warned.

The title of this blog entry is not a joke. It is the heinous reality discovered by a volunteer to came to work at Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park (QEII) early Sunday morning, May 4, 2008.

Those of you who know me personally, or who are familiar with my writings and points of view on the environment, animal welfare, and the necessity to protect and conserve endangered species can well imagine what I have to say about what happened this past weekend, and what I and many others would like to see happen to the despicable individuals who killed these animals for no other reason than to kill.

The loss of these animals is a loss to their endangered species, to the staff and volunteers and researchers who have lived with, cared for, and learned from them, and to the good people of the Cayman Islands and their supporters who are working so hard to regain lost ground and nearly lost species.

To read more about this, please visit the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme site (and make a donation, if you can), and the following news articles:

Six Blue Iguanas Murdered at Botanic Park

Police Hunt for Iguana Murderers

Now, excuse me while I go hug a lizard.

Added May 6:

Six critically endangered blue iguanas butchered in Cayman Islands breeding facility

Editorial in Cayman Compass

Cayman police probe killings of blue iguanas

Added May 7:

Probe into Giant Iguana Slaughter

Another Iguana Found Injured

Update May 14: Another of the attacked iguanas has died, bringing the number to seven, and two others injured in the attack remain in serious condition. More articles can be found through Google News


Special Online Chat: John Binns of the International Reptile Conservation Foundation and Fred Burton, founder of the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme, will be part of a special PetHobbyist.com chat on Saturday May 17, 2008 at 7 pm Eastern TIme (4 PM Pacific Time) to discuss the recent tragedy at the QE II Botonatical Gardens, the latest developments in the investigation, and how you can help BIRP recover from this tragedy and support conservation.

Spring Feed

Well, Treppie has finally come completely awake, and is now eating like a, well, tortoise in April who hasn't eaten since October. Treppie's tongue, for some reason, fascinates me. He's this brown and black scaly guy with a crepey neck, making his thick, fleshy tongue rather startling when he sticks it out to grab some food. I hung around the feeding station trying to get a good, clear photo of it, but failed miserably. Here's just a tiny bit of it, seen as he takes come collard greens from my hand.



Here's another shot, this one of his handsome face, which looks considerably less grumpy than it did when there was a large, heavy, rude lizard sitting on him:



Here's Treppie last week, grazing outside, uploaded to YouTube, for the first time this year.




I realized, while in the market the other day, that Mother Nature has brought forth the tortoises from hibernation at the same time the Spring's first crop of corn on the cob appears in the stores. Here is Baby Atlas, enjoying tortoise crack, er, corn on the cob.


I find that I need several weeks for my hands and arms to recover in between knitting pairs of soldier socks for Socks for Soldiers. Knitting on small sized needles with fine yarn being out, I pulled out my size 7s and 8s and began knitting some blanket squares for the Sonoma Blanket Project.

As I was following the news story about the 800 chihuahuas that had been rescued from a hording home, and finding out that many of them were being cared for at a clinic where I know a vet surgical nurse, I decided to make some chihuahua sweaters. Thanks to my friend Phyllis who had a dog sweater pattern small enough to fit small dogs, I got a chance to start making some sweaters earlier this week. Here are the first two. The red one is finished, while the green one needs to have the tiny 'sleeves' added and be seamed:


It wasn't until I looked at the above photo on my computer monitor that I realized how small the sweaters looked compared to Mikey's hind foot! These sweaters are about 10-11" across, when laid flat like the green one. Here's the green on laying on Mike's back:


As I sat down at my desk this morning, preparing to start my day, I looked around and realized that knitting has the potential to take over my life:


There is the stack of dog sweaters, washcloths for the SFS program, a stack of folded blanket squares for the SBP, a knitted ball I made (so I could help out a friend who was trying to knit one), the blue cozy that holds my little digital recorder, and behind the lacquered cat box, a wrist warmer I wear most mornings when I need to do a lot of mousing. Behind all that, next to the speaker, are small balls of yarn leftovers, my double pointed needles (in those nifty tubes from Nancy's Knit Knacks), a small collection of my straight needles, some little containers knitting supplies, paperclips, nail buffer (can't be snagging our knitting, can we), patterns, and what every well-equipped desk needs, my police/fire scanner and flashlight.

What!? You mean you don't??

Spring doth creep on tiny tortoise feet

While the rest of the world celebrates the vernal equinox as the first day of spring, around here, the first day of spring is heralded by the first clement day one of the chaco tortoises scratches at the back door to be let outside - and chooses to stay outside because it isn't frickin' cold or raining.

This year, Baby Atlas (now about 25 years old) was the first to want to go outside. The chacos don't do much in the way of venturesome climbing (well, clamboring over rocks and hillocks and such), necessitating me to always pick them up and put them down, a sort of aerial tortoise transfer bypassing the step from the house to the back patio.

Four years ago, I slanted some old fence boards from the step to the patio, and "drove" them up and down it in the effort to get across to them that they could use it to walk up and down rather than wait for The Mommy Airlift Service (TMAS). Last year, they finally got it, and Atlas, at least, remembers how to use it (well, to not freak out about the slant and the scary space in between the two boards)!



Atlas rambled around the patio for a while...



before heading off into the wilds of the weedy yard with the encroaching masses of honeysuckle.

In March, I was asked about a fleshy protrusion that had suddenly appeared--and was then withdrawn--from the back end of a sulcata tortoise heretofore believed to be female. I related the remarkable appearance and size of the male tortoise reproductive organ, and referred the tortoise mom to my article on Hemipenes. The problem with getting photos of them is that they tend to appear when there isn't a camera handy, and disappear by the time one risks breaking one's neck getting a camera to the scene.

Well, a few days later, not only did Atlas extrude his for the first time that I've seen (he's been with me for about 10 years), but he kept it out (Baby Exhibitionist, he is) long enough (no pun intended) for me to race to the other room and get back with my camera.



Oh! And those tiny tortoise feet? Here they are:



Spring's arrival requires confirmation, and thus was it confirmed yesterday when Treppie, my 14 year old (captive bred of captive bred parents) desert tortoise emerged from his hibernaculum (this year, under my bed) and trundled his way into the den, where he planted himself by my chair, awaiting TMAS to take him the rest of the way into the Iguana/Tortoise room. After warming up the rest of the day and night, he trundled into the kitchen this morning for a nice long drink, his first since last November.



While Treppie was sucking in his 3rd bowl of water, Mikey came down from his basking/lounging area, ready to start his morning with a poop, feed, and bath. Ah, yes, another sign of spring: males jousting for dominance at the trough! Because Treppie is just waking up from his long slumber, he wasn't thinking fast enough to do his usual trick: plant his body over the food bowl and continue drinking, thus assuring no one else can eat, even if he himself isn't eating at that time.

Mike, having been subjected to being shut out of the food bowl back when he was just a wee little thing when he first came to live with me, knows how to get even and take the offensive. First, you walk on the tortoise...




...and then stay there, making your point...




...and then add insult to injury by attempting to squash the tortoise while you eat.






Treppie uttered a few hisses, which bothered Mike not at all, so I intervened and separated them.



After taking a few bites and then stepping in the food to spread it around, Mike walked off to his bathroom to await TMBS (The Mommy Bath Service), and Treppie eventually resumed drinking.

Ah, Spring!

So much knitting, so few words...

While I am still pretty much feeling crappy and the part of my brain that does things like write and create verbal and written constructs has taken a prolonged A(bsence)WOL, about the only things I am up to doing are knitting and listening to audiobooks.

And so, apart from a whirlwind (and snowy) trip to Tulelake (thank you, Jim, Karen, Ginger and Sidney!!) to roust some of the winter cobwebs and look at hawks, eagles, owls, arctic birds, and lots and lots of icy snowy fields, I've been spending most of my time knitting and listening.

Here are a few photos to catch you up...


Some February 2008 photos taken around Tulelake and the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge, and the roads north of the refuge:

Iced canals



Nearing sunset...


This is the most snow we have seen in the three winters we have been going to Tulelake...


Tundra swans flying over the yard as we were getting packed up to come home...


Shot through the windshield heading southwest on Highway 97....


What the heck are these plants? I have several - very alien looking...*


A lone female bufflehead...



Rangers estimated that there were over 400,000 swans wintering in the Tulelake and Lower Klamath refuges this year. I think we saw almost all of them, the following being only a small slice of the massive flocks...


A couple of Canada geese who found one of the few snow-free areas to forage...


Here there be eagles. We saw ~60 of them roosting in a line of trees bordering one of the exit roads out of Lower Klamath...



Ah, the knitting stuff! A pair of black armwarmers (KnitPicks' Sierra, in 'Coal') I knit up in a cable-and-broken-rib pattern; I knit this both at the same time on 2 circular needles):


Because it's hard to see the detail, I photographed them using the Document setting on my camera - it washed out the color, and makes it easier to see what's going on.


Here's Mike in the red cabled Mondial Gold scarf I finished, like the armwarmers, just in time for the trip:



This was Ginger's first road trip. She handled it very well. Okay, so being cabled to the back helped restrict her range, but she she still managed to snuggle with her mom:



While Sidney didn't have the back seat all to himself this time, he really didn't suffer as much as the look on his face here:


I finished another pair of Socks for Soldiers, this time using on of the new Army-approved colors, KnitPicks Swish DK, in Moss:


One of the ways to make sure our sock legs will fit the generally muscular military calves is to slip the socks over a 2 litre bottle. I happened to have a bottle on hand, so:


I really do buy yarn from other places, but I sure to love KnitPicks! The following is the cuff to their Girl's Best Friend Anklet sock pattern which for some reason caught my eye and made my fingers itch to knit. The decorative cuff was fun to knit, so I've already ordered yarn in a different color to make another pair. I hope the eventual recipients enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoy making them!


And, that's it for now. See? Knitting, not so much the words...

* My friend Karen (the brain and heart behind the SonomaBlanket Project I've previously written about) identified these alien stalks as great mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and kindly pointed me towards a couple of sources, AltNature and Wikipedia. I have no recollection of plants like these lining some of the canals from when I was up in Tulelake during the summers of 1990 and 1991, but I was more focused on birds at that point, that and trying to stay out of the stinging nettle that continues to maintain a strong presence up there. Thanks, Karen!

Mini Road Trip

Sunday was a rough day for me - lots of pain, things flying out of my hands, pretty much at the end of my ability to endure things as they are. I was rather grateful that the usual Sunday knit-together with Karen, her MIL Jean, and friends, had been canceled because Jean was sick and I was just not up to it.

Karen and I decided to just go find a park where we could sit and knit and catch up with each other, but it was cold and windy, mostly overcast. Karen arrived with Sidney, leaving Ginger at home, which was good (for me, probably not so much for Karen's husband!), as I felt unable to deal with her puppy craziness.

Karen proposed just driving for a while, which was fine with me. The road unwound beneath us in the direction of Calistoga Road. I mentioned the local Petrified Forest. Karen had never heard of it, so we stopped and moseyed through the gift shop located in the former owner's house:



The gift shop has lots of fossilized things besides wood, including what looked like a, well, freeze dried or taxidermied cat, laying on the bottom shelf of large pieces of petrified wood.



Turns out that the cat is very much alive. One of the many pet cats dumped in the forested roads near the Petrified Forest, this pretty fella spends the days inside the gift shop, but since he's not housebroken, has to stay out side at night. He apparently drives the shop workers crazy in the early morning hours as he yeowls and berates them because they don't open the door to let him in--and out--and in again--and out again--until he's finally done and settles in for a prolonged snooze. As you can see by the pieces of wood on the floor, the cat has trained the humans to move them off the shelf so he can plaster himself against the heater vent. Good kitty!

Not being my usual together self, I forget where I took the following photo, but I believe it is looking across the road from the Petrified Forest gift shop & parking lot.



As we left the parking lot, I asked her if she'd ever been to the Old Faithful Geyser, down the road a piece from Calistoga. She didn't realize we had one of those, too, so there we went to read the posted history there and see the seismograph readings recorded for events close by - and far away, including the recent volcanic eruption in Colombia. As we left, I took a photo of the sky south of the parking lot.



Off we went again, heading northeast through Napa towards Lake county. We pulled off at a turnout to let Sid stretch his legs a bit. There was a creek running by,



but the bank was too steep for Sidney to get down and back with a sore leg (hurt when playing hard with Ginger the other day), so he read the news, watered a couple of plants,



and accepted some nonpetrified wood to chew on as we headed back to the car and the Sonoma County line.



We pulled over one more time, so I could get some photos of the moon hanging over a craggy bluff.



While making a pit stop in Calistoga, Sid and I stayed in the car. Here you can see that Sidney still harbors some separation anxiety when Karen leaves him behind. (He had been dumped at the pound TWICE before he was a year old because he was "incorrigible" - what is it with people who get animals for pets and expect them to be naturally tamed and obedience trained?!)



Got back home after dark to find the moon framed between the mimosa and plum trees bracketing my driveway:



Not a bad way to end what had promised to be a really bad day.