The rat rescue group I help out with (Mainely Rat Rescue) was asked to help with a hoarding situation in Holbrook, NY. This man started out with two females from a pet store and they were both pregnant. When my group arrived, he had well over 1,000 rats running around, many which were pregnant. So I took home a nursing mother and 21 little eepers. Sadly only 15 survived, but they are all doing great. The mother, whom I call…
These fine fellas were my first males. They were also my first adoptions from Mainely Rat Rescue, but definitely not my last. (I live in MA, but this rescue group has adopters all over New England). Both of them came neutered, so they could live with my girls without fear of an accidental litter. (Incidentally, if you try to get a male neutered at a local vet, I’ve found the cost to be astronomical. One vet quoted me $800! But…
I’ve had the Grotto and attachments for a number of years now. This is the most recently layout: The Grotto (main bookcase with six shelves) The Annex (secondary bookcase with two shelves) The Expansion Fort (formerly my cockatiel cage, containing the wheels) The whole thing is connected with 3″ PVC pipe which leads out to: The Playground (a big desk with toys for free range time). There’s one problem I’ve consistently had over the years. The pipe out to the…
I’m a big believer in making toys rather than buying them. After all, they’ll be chewed in no time anyway. This invention is called the Triple Decker Ratty Condo. The end result is to have three cereal boxes stacked with trap doors cut between the levels. Here are the steps. Start with the bottom box. Cut a square in the top of it big enough for your ratties to fit through. Put the next box on top of it and…
I went to a holiday rat party and they had these ‘poppers.’ In the UK, they call these crackers. With the human equivalent, you pull each end and a prize pops out. These rattie holiday gifts are really easy to make. Just take a toilet paper roll and fill it with rat goodies. Then wrap it in paper (no tape), twist the ends, and tie them up with some biodegradable twine. Your ratties will have lots of fun ‘opening’ their…
Many people use metal shower rings to hang hammocks, etc. from cages. You can get a packet from any hardware or home improvement store. I did the same thing, but noticed over time they start to look kind of corroded. Recently I acquired some new mice. I noticed Cheerio kept licking the cruddy shower ring. Hmmm….not happy with that. It was then I did some research. Those metal rings just say ‘metal’ but don’t tell you what kind of metal….
While I was out hiking with my dog somewhere in the eastern U.S., he started digging furiously. I thought he was after a critter, but he uncovered a mysterious scroll. It turned out to be the lost quatrain! Yup, The Mapsurfer Quatrains has an additional verse: XXIV. An old Amish myth and these lines do agree If you go wayback, my meaning you’ll see For it lay in the question of a certain verse And it lies in its answer,…
I recently tackled a mystery letterbox that gave longitude and latitude coordinates. Not being a geocacher, I first had to find out just a little bit about how they work. So here’s a real quick lesson. Latitude are imaginary lines that run horizontally along the sphere of the earth (parallel to the equator). Longitude are lines that run vertically from north to south poles. The coordinates are given as a latitude number first, then a longitude number. Format Each number…
There are a lot of letterbox clues that have cryptograms you need to solve. A cryptogram is a substitution cipher, which means that a different letter or symbol is substituted for the regular alphabet letter. Like this: 3ls83# dl1i th3s (Don’t try to solve that, I just made it up). I don’t like to cheat in solving clues, but I have no problem using tools that take the busy work out of it. I found a neat online cryptogram helper….
When I first started boxing, I thought all boxes were listed in either Atlas Quest or Letterboxing.org. But I’ve found that some people have their own websites of clues which can’t be found on either of those sites. This post is just as much for me to keep track of them as to share. Mapsurfer (Randy Hall) Website: mapsurfer.com This is the first rouge letterboxer that I read about. His clues are absolutely fantastic. I read on a blog that…