My husband's company Christmas Party

Well, why in the world would I put this on my rat blog? Well, because it is my blog and because I can. lol We went to my husband's company party. We played a get to know you bingo game and the residents of Vermin Village were on it! "has more than 15 rodents" That was us!

Butterfly the Butterball of a Hammie

Well, today we took the remains of some of our critters that have passed within the last month to OHS for private cremation. They are wrapped in a clean blanket and placed in a freezer appropriate container and then in the freezer until my husband can bring me to the shelter. Anyway, someone was looking out for a pudgy hammie girl named Butterfly. As I was getting helped by the staff at OHS, a woman walked in with a cage. A former roommate left their hammie with her family. After caring for her for a while, they decided it would be best to bring her to find a new home as their kitties had tried to get at her already. It was all in the timing. We got to OHS later than we wanted to due to me doing some cleaning in the rattie room. OHS said they couldn't take the little hammie at that time and I mentioned I might have a friend that might take her. :-) I called my friend and now the hammie has a new place. I don't have much experience with hammies but I must say she was a friendly little girl. She let me pick her up and she ran all around her cage. Anyway, it was fortuitous that we happened to be there at that time. I'm so glad Butterfly has a wonderful new home. She is a very lucky little....er...not so little :-), hammie! It is also rather ironic since today was the day we were to participate in the rattie train which in the end did not need us as none were coming into Oregon this trip, so we had our own little hammie train!

Zoey and Olivia Have A New Home

LMR found Zoey and Olivia a new forever home! This is such good news. They already got an update and Zoey and Olivia have taken to their new cage mate, a little girl that lost her cage mate. All three were in the hammock together. This is so nice to hear. I'm so glad LMR was able to take them to find them new homes. I will be forever grateful for that.

Cages

Well, I ordered my new cages a few weeks ago. I'll be selling all of my current cages. I'm so excited because the new room design will give me more room and make in-between cage cleaning a lot easier. I'll be posting pics as soon as the room is done. Finally. Right now I've really thinned out the room and will be sorting through stuff later tonight. I have a bit more cage cleaning to do now as I will be in Canada next week at Madonna's concert. I'll also, hopefully, get to meet the folks at LMR. Yeah!

Lil' Bit

Lil' Bit found a home while at the Port Orchard, WA show. It's so exciting. I'm so glad to hear that she has found a wonderful home. A great thanks to the wonderful folks at Little Mischief Rescue!

Charles and Edward aka Cody and Zach

Cody and Zach found a new home together and live in a Martins R-680. The girls are still waiting in foster care for a new home. I'm so glad the boys have a new home!

Falafels and Ratties

I got some falafels today. I didn't really care for these particular ones. But no worries. I've got little fuzzies that might like them just fine. So I brought them home and cut them up. Mosco and Worth snagged some right off! Sitting holding their falafels and discussing the odd weather we are having. They occasionally nodded to each other as if to say "cultural food is so yummy." And "Did you see that damn cat licking spaghetti sauce off of papa's plate at about 2am? When did cats start liking tomatoes?" "What about that thunder and lightening yesterday?"

After listening to them chew the fat while consuming their falafel snack I walked over to the foster kids, Olivia, Little Bit, Zoey, Zach and Cody with the rest of the falafel bits. Zach and Cody INSISTED on being served in bed (their hammock) while Zoey, Little Bit, and Olivia politely took pieces of their falafel and Zoey promptly jumped in their hammock to eat her falafel part.

So, one stop on the world tour of food. My little guys don't get a lot of this kind of stuff. In fact, I think this is the first time I have ever fed them anything fried other than the occasional beef liver. (And no, I absolutely, positively do NOT eat that. Icky.)

A Positive Day for St. Helen's Ratties

Answering an ad on Craigslist, I offered to bring the baby rats to the Oregon Humane Society. In the end, I went to St. Helens to see what I could do. I left a cage to house the ratties. The boys were placed in the top portion (the ramp locks up) and the girls were placed in the bottom portion. I took one of the little girls to another family in Beaverton as they were adopting her. I will take the baby boys in a month or so. When this illness has passed. I am bringing her food next week along with the second bag of bedding. This is to go towards the care of the little ones until I can take them. The little popcorn boys are so cute! :-) Hopefully I'll get pictures next time!

Broccoli Ticks

Ok. The list of forbidden foods say do not feed wild insects. I am so lucky I was cutting the broccoli for the ratties and not me though. I cut it very fine for them otherwise they argue over the pieces if they are too big. (If I was cutting it for human consumption...I would have not seen the bugs.) As I was cutting, I noticed a bug here or there. I kind of expect that, it's organic. Then I really started looking. Up right under and into the florets these big bugs that I think were grayish/black that clung to the floret as if they were ticks! I could not rinse or spray them off, I had to use my nail and scrap them off. If I had a sandblaster I might have gotten them off of course the broccoli would have been gone too. :-) After looking at how many there were, I packed it up and brought it back--the store is really good and gave me my money back..the guy was really horrified. The babies got something easier to clean tonight in its place...baby bok choy.

Has anyone been seeing a lot of this? This is the second time I found stuff on my broccoli within two months. I swear I'm going to frozen. :-( Really irritates me too...what self-respecting native Californian transplanted to Oregon likes to eat out of rigor broccoli? Yuck!

Although...I guess it is better than broccoli and friends. ;-)