Monday, September 26, 2011

Monthly Fill In

It seems I only post about once a month, so here is the fill in.  Ben and Zoe had their first liter of pups (that's what baby mice are actually called).  The babies were born almost 3 weeks ago, and I just separated them into separate male/female cages.  Out of a litter of 5 babies, 4 were male, which is kind of odd, but I double checked them all.  Zoe is already about to pop again.  Since mouse gestation is only about 21 days, I wanted to make sure to get the cages cleaned and the older babies separated before she had more.  She kind of caught me by surprise the last time and I didn't have a chance to clean the tank before she gave birth, man it got stinky!

Zoe and Rogue, the lone female babe.
Ben and the boys.
I usually don't name the babies, as they will be food eventually, but Rogue has a bit of a story.  The other night my friend Ariel from Seattle was in town and we were looking at the baby mice.  One of them, Rogue, ran up our arms and jumped out of the tank.  It took us about 30 minutes to fish her out, she was having quite the adventure under the sewing desk, bookshelf, and the lizard tank.  So that's why she has a name, she was our Rogue runaway mouse.  Since she was the only female baby it seemed fitting.  Don't know if we will keep her to maturity yet, we'll see.

In snake news, my fingers are still jacked up.  The two joints on my ring finger are still pretty sore when I overuse my hand.  And I have a lump in my middle finger where the majority of the damage was.  It's either scar tissue or a piece of tooth left from Sancho, only time will tell.  If it's tooth it will fester out over time.

Not long after Sancho bit me, Isley grazed me during feeding.  She's been extremely aggressive at feeding time and we aren't sure why.  We are trying to feed her every week to see if that helps, but honestly she doesn't need to be fed that often.  We'll see if it how it works out.

The weather is starting to turn here, and fall is in the air.  Unfortunately, Gidgit's hair isn't growing back as quickly as I thought it would.  So, I've decided to enrich her wardrobe and make her a couple of sweaters.  Right now I'm working on a black hoodie that has a skull and crossbones with a bow on it's head on the back.  I'm almost done with it and it's thrilling me to death.  I make all of Gidgit's sweaters out of acrylic so I can throw them in the wash on hot and dry them on high.  I have all these wonderful extravagant projects going right now, and all I want to knit is acrylic dog sweaters, go figure.

Here's a pic of Gidgit in one of her older sweaters that I knit.
I finished up my hitchhiker scarf and I absolutely love it.  It will be wonderful to wear on fall mornings when there is a slight chill in the air.

Hitchhicker, 8/3-8/15,
Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs Gothling - Oleander in Zombie Prostitute
I also finished a hat for our favorite barista at the local coffee shop where we hold our weekly knitting meetups.  I don't have a picture because I'm lacking in a model, but I will post one when I deliver the hat to the recipient.

I'm also making progress on several other projects including a couple pairs of socks and what has become my own little baby blanket purgatory.  Three of my coworkers are pregnant, one of them is having twins, and they are all due in Jan/Feb.  That's not really a good time of year for accountants, so we plan to have the huge joint shower in mid December.  Since they all kind of piled up on me, I got myself in a little deep. 

When the first woman announced she was pregnant I decided I would make her a car-seat blanket, a hat, and booties.  Then the next woman announce she was expecting a few weeks later, Ok, I can handle two.  Then I came back from vacation to find out the third woman was pregnant with twins.  I still plan to make them all car-seat blankets, but I've decided to take the time, energy, and supplies I would have used on the hats and booties, and make those for charity.  Hopefully I will have a whole heap of hats and booties that I can donate in these lovely women's names, and hopefully it helps someone in need during this coming winter.

Cheers, and unless I get better at posting more often, see you next month!