h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

She probably objected to how you were manhandling that poor mouse!

Nawww, couldn't be ... The deaf-from-birth barn ensured not a single was on the property. Nor any groundhogs, muskrats, squirrels, chipmunks or any other furry'ish being. Rather territorial, that was ...

Sounds like it! Some cat.

Ours caught a weasel a few months ago And he wasn't even eight months old yet!

She was indeed. She lived about 8 years, I think, and produced 3 litters. Once she came home with a trout of about 2 pounds weight ... which she must have stolen from someone, because there was no water source within 10 miles that would have sustained such a . Another time, she was gone for 2 weeks before she returned. Missing those inner-wrist pads of the front limbs, and half of her lower jaw. What-ever she fought, it was big and mean, but the fact that she came home speaks hugely for her. I tended the wounds with one eye-dropper and hydrogen peroxide, and fed her milk only with a different dropper. She lasted about 3 years past that.

Her daily routine became feeding from me, about 6 am. Sleep. To the neighbor across the road for his 'treats', and sleep on his porch for a couple of hours. Then to my grand-parents (3 doors down the street) for what-ever they had for her. And another nap. Which would bring her home about the time I was home from school to feed her supper. And the girl was never fat !!!

Now that's a *real* cat

Yeah she was. Very people friendly, for a barn-girl. The one's that have adopted my homes over the last couple of decades are much less 'wild' and independent. Still, a loving and lovely pair. There are some pics of the current pair (Shadow and Molly) on my Fotki stuff ... linked from my PS.

I'll go look when I get a moment.

I grew up on a farm myself, we always had dozens of barn cats! But our four current ones are allowed in the house.

We were in a village, and had a barn for the milk cow, 20 laying hens per year, maybe a calf or two, as many as 300 rabbits at one time, and over 100 guinea pigs. (The latter two being a "boys" business, 4 brothers) The cat always kept the barn free of rodents, and Dad always wanted to allow her in the house. Mother forbade that !!! No dogs or cats ever in HER house.

One Christmas, Dad dropped a few subtle comments about thinking mice may have found their way in. "Puss" got to enjoy the house for almost a day, ... until a sparkly bauble on the tree caught her attention. ... That was the end of that.

That's why we have plastic baubles on the staircase and on the lower branches...

But the kittens we got last year did an excellent job of clearing the mice out of the pantry!

Ours wasn't really a working farm, either - my mother and stepdad had a home-based computer business, and we raised the animals more as a hobby. Besides all the cats we had about 30 head of sheep and two sheepdogs to go with them, two donkeys, a horse, chickens and geese and ducks, and all the smaller pets - mice, rats, gerbils, a snake, a tame woodpecker we raised from a chick after he fell out of the nest...

My mother's a biologist, we could always carry any animal indoors to show her Except earthworms. She's afraid of earthworms.

They can be pretty fearsome beasties.

Earthworms? Yes, all teeth and claws

And those horrid ugly body scales ... ...

We each have our things. Snakes I find repulsive, and would prefer to eliminate cleanly. (Too many RC bible classes, ya think?) Spiders just make my skin crawl and always have. No qualms about eliminating them.

Meanwhile, I am in a hotel room, about 1,100 miles from my home. The morning is foggy, my window reveals a bridge (https://www.hdbc.ca/facts.asp) and I got nostalgic ... Soon, I'' re-read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, in PDF. Nicely printed.

Catch and release household here, due to all the biologists. Though I am busy "eliminating" fruit flies

Good bridge!

Compared to some bridges I have driven, it seems nothing special. And yet, every one has their own geological, environmental and engineering challenges, eh? Here's one for you to google, ... the Confederation Bridge ...

What I like about this one is that it tries to use fewer materials...

But then I'm busy writing about Buckminster Fuller's motto of "doing more with less", so I'm influenced at present

I love bridges, to walk or drive ... Gimme a bit of time to try to find links to a couple that I have done, walked or driven, a time or three. You may get some notions, gut-feels as to stupidly-wrong or inexplicably-working stuff. My world of electronics is that. Some things that I have created should NOT work, physics says so. But they do. And some that ought to, ... crumble like a wet bit of paper towel stuff ...

Thanks.

Though I had to give up the bridge-building class, it was the only one I could drop

Right, I won't hunt for links, if they aren't of interest or not ...

If you have good links to your favourites, I'd like to see them anyway. Not taking classes doesn't mean not learning

Right. For the first time in about 18 days, I am not packing, sorting, maki9ng the home ready and stuff for work travels ... 'Cos I'm in the midst of one

Should I find a handful of links, some often not easily married into h2g2, have you an arms-length e-mail addy? "Her-with-hel-and-sword@@gmail.com" sorta thingie"?

I have a readily visible on on my PS, than in some browsers is an envelope, others show a huge "plus" sign