Somehow, It's Funny that Way

[flowerbug]

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There may have been one or two things that I have missed. That worm jailbreak, certainly!

i've had worm jailbreaks here when i first started keeping worms. i found out that worms could get through cheesecloth (and also fungus gnats and fruit flies). not too many escapees but a few and it was always sad when i found dried worms that got out and then i did not see them in time to rescue them and put them back in the buckets. glad to say that has not been an issue in 12 years or more now.

 

[Phaedra]

 

[Zeedman]

I'm not up to speed and it has been nearly 10 years that the news may have reached some of you about a species taking the land-speed record. I recently discovered the story and the "know your insect" post in Garden Humor" made me think of it again.

They are no Secretariats or cheetahs, or even insects. (They are arachnids.)...

Mite sets new record as world's fastest land animal

A Southern California mite far outpaces the Australian tiger beetle, the current record-holder for running speed as measured in body lengths per second. By this measure, the mite runs 20 times faster than a cheetah and the equivalent of a person running 1300 miles per hour. The discovery is...

www.sciencedaily.com

digitS', not quite up to the speed of sound (767mph) just yet ~ boom! ~

That's mitey fast.

 

[Zeedman]

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Me: "Here we have a custom of exchanging seeds."

Of course, any Interstellar Seed Exchange would have to go through APHIS. Customs going through Customs. Wouldn't want to end up with some carnivorous space kudzu. (See British TV show "The Avengers", season 4, episode 11: "Man-Eater of Surrey Green")

Yeah, I guess that dates me too.

Edit: Didn't know Diana Riggs had passed away, I had serious teenage crush on her. You know you're getting old when most of those whose acting & music you loved growing up are gone.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Me: "Here we have a custom of exchanging seeds."

Of course, any Interstellar Seed Exchange would have to go through APHIS. Customs going through Customs. Wouldn't want to end up with some carnivorous space kudzu. (See British TV show "The Avengers", season 4, episode 11: "Man-Eater of Surrey Green")

Yeah, I guess that dates me too.

Not that on Earth would be any safer. Remember, in the original novel, it appears the Russians BRED the Triffids into existence, as did Seymour with Audrey Jr. in the original movie (the plant being alien only got added in the musical.) Give me Frank R. Stockton's Cosmic Bean any time, or the grafted plant that produced infinite amounts of hot tea.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Not sure this is funny, but it is certainly weird.

For the last couple of days, Juniper has been chasing a mouse that showed up in the house (compared to our last two cats, Juniper is a MUCH more active mouser with a pretty good kill rate.)

Fast forward to this morning. I'm sitting at the computer, Juniper is on the end of the couch. Suddenly, he gets up and looks down on the ground. I can't see what he is looking at from where I am, but, given how he is staring, I know he has seen the mouse and it has come into the sunroom.

So far, this is normal, I expect Juniper to jump down off the couch to try and catch the mouse, the mouse to start running and a chase to ensue with him either catching the mouse or it escaping under the radiator again.

What I am NOT expecting is for this mouse to CLIMB the sofa cover and position itself right in front of Juniper's face, VERY close (if it was any closer, they'd have been touching noses.)

Juniper must not have been expecting this either, as he just STARES at the mouse They stare at each other for a few minutes, then the mouse gets bored and walks away (walks, not runs) along the back of the sofa. Juniper begins to follow it but the mouse stays totally oblivious. There's then a few minutes of "cat and mouse" while it hides in the junk on the floor and Juniper tries to find it.

Eventually, the mouse gets bored and decides to leave the room. Except, rather than skirting the edge of the room under the TV cabinet like most, I decides to take the totally open and unprotected area in front of the table (again, walking, not running) in full view of Juniper sitting on the table.

At this point, it occurs to me that, if this mouse is being so casual, trapping it under a wastebasket so we can release it alive will probably be quite easy. But, by the time I have gotten the basket and left the room, the mouse has returned to under the radiator.

Fast forward a few hours. Dad comes into the living room and sees the mouse in front of the chest of drawers, he goes up to it, and, as it doesn't move, he assumes it is dead and goes to get some bags to get rid of the body. He comes back to find the mouse gone from where it was, and assumes it has run off. He then sees it has only gone a few feet and is again walking vary slowly and casually, making getting it into the waste basket quite easy. He then goes out to release it far enough from the house it does not come back (he has to go a lot farther as than he thinks, since where he wanted to release it was blocked off.) And when he finally DOES find the spot, it takes some effort to get the mouse to LEAVE the wastebasket.

In other words, this mouse was either ridiculously brave or ridiculously stupid. I'm sort of glad Juniper didn't try and kill it, if it was acting like that, maybe it was sick with something Juniper could have caught.

And I just have to hope it doesn't come back, or I will have to contemplate that the mouse and Juniper have formed some sort of emotional bond (it does happen between cats and mice sometimes.) and I won't be sure WHAT to do.

 

[digitS']

@Pulsegleaner , Like Snoopy and Woodstock?

 

[flowerbug]

...
And I just have to hope it doesn't come back, or I will have to contemplate that the mouse and Juniper have formed some sort of emotional bond (it does happen between cats and mice sometimes.) and I won't be sure WHAT to do.

it is the basis for how many Tom and Jerry episodes?

i think the mouse was sick or perhaps old and ready to die or had eaten too much wall paste or ...

 

[Pulsegleaner]

it is the basis for how many Tom and Jerry episodes?

i think the mouse was sick or perhaps old and ready to die or had eaten too much wall paste or ...

Not fully grown, so probably not old. And if it was sick (or injured) you'd think it would have moved shakily, and it didn't, it just didn't seem to care about being seen or Juniper's presence. I am aware that there are parasites that can make animals start acting in ways to ENCOURAGE predators to eat them (thus brining the parasites to the next host for their life cycle,) but I can't remember if any of those are for mice.

While INCREDIBLY unlikely, I also learned on an old TV program that, if a wild mouse or rat mates with a domesticated one, the offspring tend to behave more like a domestic than a wild (i.e. less fear of humans and more docile.) The NYC Ratcatcher who said this was clearing out a the results of a couple who had been raising domestic rats for the pet/snake food trade, got overwhelmed, dumped them in the basement and then skipped. When he found they hybrid one (it had a white patch on its back, which pure wild rats won't have.) it was so docile that, rather than kill it with the rest, he took it home to his daughters as a pet.

@Pulsegleaner , Like Snoopy and Woodstock?

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Sort of, except I don't think Beagles are bird dogs, so Woodstock would not be his natural prey anyway. Plus, most "bird dogs" are trained to FETCH birds, not catch them. And I'm not sure Woodstock is a game bird (I have no idea what kind of bird he is, since canaries don't usually live outside.)

It's a bit more like how Snoopy is friends with bunnies even though (as Frieda keeps pointing out) as a Beagle, he's supposed to chase and hunt them.

 

[digitS']

Seeing this, I thought of @Phaedra .