Currently 12F here in western Mitten State, and a coupla days with lows in the single digits (6F !!) in the upcoming forecast.
It’s still fucking snowing, too.
When Sweet Manager dropped me off last night, she made noises about maybe getting one of the Oven Masters - whom she was also dropping off, after previously giving a lift to one of the other “early out” girls; woman was running a friggin’ taxi service for her employees in the storm, bless her - and coming back out this afternoon to try to push my car back outta the driveway.
I declined having them do this last night, since the street was otherwise clear and I didn’t want my little blue lump to be in the way of the big plow trucks.
But since she was also giving the Oven Master a lift - and he’s a big dude - I think she was trying to prevail on him to return the favor, on my behalf.
I do question the wisdom of parking on the street while the plows are out, though.
… thoughts from my cold-weather penguin friends?
Speaking of snow …
The big mystery/excitement for the morning will be discovering what’s up with trash pickup.
I did NOT haul my big bin out last night. Absolutely slipped my mind once I was home, and earlier I’d had the vague notion that since today is a U.S. holiday, they’d pick up tomorrow.
I usually would just put it out on my usual schedule, just in case, but with the snow nonsense … yeah, slipped my mind.
I just saw a trash truck going down the other side of the street. Uh-oh!
Normally they pick up my side of the street by 7 am (an hour ago) and then come back down the other side. In which case, I’ve missed this week’s pickup.
BUT!!! The bins on the opposite side were clearly picked up, since they don’t have snow on top of the lids.
BUT!!! The bins on my side of the street all sport this season’s trendy fluffy white foot-tall hats.
SO!!! Having observed all this, I hastily donned a parka and boots (and pants, thankyouverymuch) and made the enormous exertion of dragging that sucker through about foot-anna-half deep cold, wet, fluffy stuff.
I reallyREALLY hope all that work wasn’t for naught; I’m not joking when I say I was absolutely panting for breath by the time I had it situated.
(Side note: it’s too bad the Midwest is so flat; this lake effect stuff would be absolutely bonkers for downhill skiing!
… but don’t talk at me about cross-country or snowshoeing; that shit looks like waaaayyy too much physical effort, without gravity to help ease the journey.)
Dammit, I really wanna get back up & make a hot cuppa, but Monkey has absolutely annexed my lap and is using my knee as a pillow, and how could I possibly disturb such magnificently soft, shiny fur purring into my thigh?
And now, we turn to the educational portion of our segment.
WARNING: The following contains material not suitable for those squeamish about rodents or reptiles, and reader discretion is advised.
What is a typical litter size for ASFs? And how many survive the first couple weeks? Is cannibalism an issue? How soon do they wean? etc.
Is Pretzel still pissed at you from the hunger games a couple months ago? I know diddly about snakes besides that they’re cool to look at and handle. But I’d be surprised if they have the brains to remember to be pissed.
@LSLGuy asked last week (I effed up the quote structure a bit) and can happily monologue at length about these critters.
First-time ASF moms can sometimes have just one or two, but especially for more experienced ones, a dozen or even more is not at all uncommon.
The other term for this species is “multimammate” which is a scientific term that means, quite literally, “Whole lotta boobies” and they can have IIRC up to twelve pairs of nipples, so they are well-equipped to handle making many, many copies of themselves.
They like to live in big interrelated colonies, and unlike mice, having multiple males in one group isn’t a problem. The females regularly kick their asses and keep them in line, and the males actually make good daddies (unlike many rodents) and will even play an active role by giving nursing moms a break: keeping the babies warm and herded together in a pile while mom gets a snack and water.
The young females also won’t allow the males to breed with them until they are good and ready, unlike - again, for ex. - mice, which will breed with females who aren’t really grown enough yet to physically withstand pregnancy.
If there are several litters in a group, the females will pile them together and take turns nursing the whole batch, regardless of age/size difference.
In many rodents, this can mean that the littlest ones get pushed out of feeding by the bigger, stronger (older) babies, but no, not ASFs. The moms use some mechanism to make sure the babies get rotated - I have never lost littles to this, and in fact, they seem to thrive by having the company of half-siblings.
They also have virtually zero smell. Rats stink, and mice are worse, but these guys produce far less ammonia, which is also why I can get away with keeping them in a glass tank.
They are chewing machines, and not being domesticated, are skittish to the point of being actively aggressive to humans, especially when protecting babies.
In short, they are such good parents that they’re basically Xerox machines, which is why they’re gaining popularity as reptile feeders. They essentially don’t have many of the drawbacks of other rodents (esp. smell) but have their own drawbacks many of the others don’t (esp. their rather shitty temperament, and proclivity to chew and escape).
On the other other hand, that crap temperament is, for many people, a feature not a bug.
It’s a lot easier to feed something off and not be all mushy and sentimental about the cute widdle cutey-pie when it’s just bitten a chunk out of your fingertip.
Oh, and as far as being fed, I doubt Pretzel is angry or resentful - reptiles do not have a cerebral cortex and to the best of our understanding of neurology are simply incapable of such concepts - but I think she’s unfortunately still underfed.
What I hope isn’t the case - but fear it might be - is that I’ve set off a negative feedback loop. Didn’t handle her much when she was so hungry, so the rare times I opened her enclosure was to feed her, which I’m afraid may have taught her to associate my hand with food. Which is obviously very suboptimal.
To that end, I wanna get another pair of heavy leather gloves. The ones I have, I use to handle the ASFs so to a snake’s insanely sensitive, uh, senses, they are redolent of tasty food, and obviously a bad choice to wear around her.
I’m hoping that protecting my hands will make me less wary of handling her & re-acclimate her to being picked up or held.
Meanwhile, the best course of action seems to be to stuff her face till she’s fat & happy … which ironically, since they’re starting to breed, means holding off on feeding any off for the short term, till they establish a breeding colony.
… or I make the coupla-hours drive back out to buy more.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk! 
