Frostbite in Florida in Summer

Anyone who has done much sweet stuff in the kitchen (jelly, candy, jam, etc.) knows that melted sugar is hotter than boiling water. Add to it the ability to stick to skin and you can get a really bad burn. This weekend I learned something new.

We now have a freeze dryer.  Sugar does not freeze dry. It is hydroscopic (holds onto water molecules). To test if a food containing a significant or unknown amount of sugar will freeze dry, it is frozen first.

There is a salsa that we really like that I was interested in freeze drying so I decided to do a test run. While I was at it, I thought I would test a BBQ sauce and a ketchup that we like. I knew that both of those might be problematic due to a potentially high sugar content.

First I put small amounts in a silicon mold and froze them. The salsa made beautiful little cubes. The BBQ sauce almost froze solid and the ketchup was the consistency of very thick pudding. 

Onto a tray for freeze drying with the salsa. What to do with the other two? I did not want to throw them away but they were not going to freeze dry. They were going to explode when it pulled a vacuum and make a huge mess.

Scoop them out and put them back. The mold was small. A scraper would not fit in it but my pointer finger would. I scooped them out with that poor finger. Yes, it started to feel really cold and hurt but it was only a little bit of product so I pushed through and finished.

Washed my hands.  Oops.  My finger felt funny. In fact by now it felt like it had a shot of Novocain.  I could not feel anything I touched with it. When I felt it with my other hand, the finger tip was solid. No give. Frozen solid.

<sigh>  Frost bite.  Boy does it hurt!  It hurts for days.  No one I talked to knew what I should expect. Would my finger tip fall off? How long would it hurt? It was red and hot for several days. In fact it is just now starting to be a normal temperature compared to the other fingers on that hand.

Moral of the story - sugar burns at both high and low temperatures. Handle it with care.

For the past week they have been working on the elevators at my office. This morning while waiting for the working car, I decided to ask the repairman a question. Thinking I would get an answer about how safe or unsafe he felt they were, I asked "Do you ride them?"

His answer was certainly not what I expected. "Yes, we ride on top of them."

As I pictured an action thriller featuring a middle aged elevator repairman, my car came. I got in and wondered all the way up if I would have been safer on the roof.

Delivery

The other evening we came home from walking the dogs as the postlady was getting ready to leave our house. She saw us and came over.

"Oh good, you are here."

"Why does something require a signature? I didn't order anything that I know of that requires a signature."

"Yes. This requires a signature," as she hands me a box. "Not only that, but it requires a signature from an adult."

At this point in time I have an extremely puzzled look on my face, she is extremely curious but of course she cannot ask what I ordered, and Jeff, who finished depositing poop bags in the trash, has come over and is curious too.

I look at the sender. It was a cloth/mesh travel bag/cage for our budgie, Flitter. I am sure the postlady thought I was making it up when I told her.

Really? An adult's signature for a bird's backpack? Just last week we had a chainsaw delivered with no signature.

Our First Barn Hunt

What follows is one our barn hunt introductory runs. 

Keep in mind that while I really like domesticate rats, I am highly allergic. Jeff on the other hand dislikes all rats. How to practice? We have a Hav-A-Heart rat trap. Catch a wild rat, have the dogs practice, and take it to a distant park to be released. We have a plan!

The Furrykids in our "Barn"

We bought my mother a house. She moved out. It has a large sun room. Perfect for converting to a barn. Add half a dozen bales of hay. Barn ready.

The kids examining the rat before the hunt

Catching a rat was easy. Put the baited trap in the front yard overnight. One large male rat caught.

Now how to transfer the rat from a square trap to a round rat tube. A sand bag catches my eye. This works beautifully for the first young rat we caught. He was only slightly larger than a field mouse. He cooperated beautifully. This new rat is an adult male in the prime of his life. We better do the transfer in a closed environment. Mother's house has a long master bathroom. Transfer location chosen.

Jeff and I lock ourselves in the bathroom. Jeff holds the bag. I have the trap ready. I put one of the trap in the bag. I carefully release that end of the trap without releasing the other end (figured that out with the first guy and no Jeff). The rat falls into the bag. 

This guy is much more athletic than the first baby. He catches the side of the bag about halfway down and instantly rockets out of the bag. He leaps at me. I do what anyone with a healthy regard for rat teeth would do - I instantly raise my hands up near my head. Ooops. There was a large trap in one hand. I smack myself in the face with it. Jeff is OK because the rat jumped towards me. It runs behind the toilet, jumps up, and hides on the pipes up near the tank.

What to do?

I put the already open rat tube on the floor between the tub and the toilet. I turn asking Jeff to open the other two spare tubes. He is over the entire process. He refuses but at least he does not open the door. I open the spare tubes and put them on the other side of the toilet by the sink cupboard. My face is killing me. 

Where is the rat?? I do not see him behind the toilet any more. Where did he go? It is a mostly empty bathroom. Where is he?? I carefully pick up the first tube I had set down. The rat is in the tube hiding. I quickly screw on the lid.

Now we can hunt.

The actual hunt was fun for the dogs. As for the rat when we got to the park and I opened the tube, I was not sure how he would look. When he did not immediately run out, I thought for sure we had accidently killed him. Nevermind the large meal of premium dog chow he ate while he waited to be transferred to the tube, nevermind the water we provided for him, and nevermind that we turned the AC on in the house for his comfort. Nope he was not dead. He was asleep. I tapped the tube. He startled awake, saw the park, and never stopped to say good bye.

The only question left is how to explain the black eye to my office tomorrow...

Answer

For those who were curious the mystery is solved via this video at the 1:58 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukn8niALWww

 Also of interest are the 2:55, 4:34, and 7:15 marks.  They show who did not do it.

The best news is the box was empty when we came home from work.  The possum appeared to have eaten a portion of the dog chow and then left for new adventures.  Since the box itself was not damaged and the door flaps were very small, we believe he left on his four feet.

Early Morning Excitement

The scene.  Early morning we are in the bedroom getting dressed.  All the dogs but Misty have come in to watch.  Last time we saw Misty she was in the kitchen washing everyone's breakfast bowls.  She is very conscientious about having clean dog bowls.

Bark, bark, bark, bark,...

What is Misty barking at?  None of the other dogs are barking.  They are quiet and relaxed.

Bark, bark, bark, bark,....

Ergh!  I hate barking.  Off to investigate.

Misty is standing in the middle of the family room barking at the door to the pool room.  "What are you barking at?  Go on out."

Misty trots to the dog door with me following her and goes on through.  I watch through the door's window to see what she does.  Once in the pool room she circles a toy on the floor at a distance.  She trots to the dog door to the backyard.  She glances out the window (it is at her eye level).  Misty turns around and stares suspiciously at the toy on the floor, then goes outside.

By now several other members of the pack have followed me.  Marvin goes through the pool room dog door.  He goes directly to the toy, picks it up, and starts back for the door.  He drops the toy on the floor before coming through the door.  "Great," I think.  "Now Misty will start barking again because the toy is in front of the dog door and she won't be able to come back in.

Squatting on the floor, I push the dog door flap open.  "Yuck."  It is the old toy they have been tearing apart that I probably should have thrown away.  I reach through the door and pick up the toy.

What do I have in my hand????  This is not a toy.  This is real fur.  Looking closer I see a baby possum.  S/he is doing what possums do best when threatened.  It curled in a tight circle playing dead.  It is breathing.  It is NOT something I want to pick up in my bare hands.  Too late for that train.

Baby possum in box

I carefully put the possum in a handy five gallon bucket.  With time and quiet, it unrolls, sits up, and starts to look better.  I give it a cardboard box lined with leaves with two exits, a smaller box as a bed, a bowl of water, and a dish of various food (canned dog food, cashews - google said they sometimes eat nuts and they were handy, and some fruit).  The box goes into the shade under some bushes in the front yard.  If s/he is smart, he relaxes in it today and scampers out tonight staying far away from the dangerous toy poodles in the backyard.

Now the question of the day is:  "Who brought the possum into the pool room in the first place?"  Time to ask some tough questions of the pack.

L2R - Raven, Marvin, Misty, Brittany, Chester, Katie

Also time to watch some video footage from the pool room.

Swimming Lessons with Jerky

The scene:  Two rubber rafts floating on the crystal clear water of an Endless Pool.  One raft has a clear bottom and will hold a child or multiple poodles.  One raft is made to hold a six pack but is used to hold jerky.

The characters:  Two humans, six poodles

I am trying to introduce Raven to the pool and our poodle boat.  This requires treats.  We are building up muscles on several of the poodles for various reasons.  This is enhanced with treats.  I am teaching non-water loving poodles that swimming is fun.  This  requires treats.  We teach all of the dogs where the Scamper Ramp is so they can enter (requires treats) and exit the pool (no treats needed).

We are just getting ready to get into the pool to start.  There are a lot of treats in the treat boat.  There are no people in the pool or even on the deck yet.  Katie spots the treats.

It seems the swimming is not bad lessons have paid off.  Katie runs down the ramp sees me climbing into the pool as fast as possible and takes off swimming.  With a head start and more legs than I have, Katie wins.  She goes for the treats.  In reaching into the treat boat and grabbing as many treats as she can before I get there, Katie overturns the entire boat.

My crystal clear water is now filled with floating and sinking jerky.  Lovely.  Needless to say the day's lessons were cancelled in favor of diving for jerky, vacuuming jerky, and skimming jerky bits.  sigh.