Skull & Other Bones

One of the things they don't tell you when you buy a house is that — at some point — you will have to deal with dead animals. For example, JoJo the Enforcer (who lives in Long Island) had to drag a dead deer from behind her house out to the street. 

We don't have deer where I live, but a very large opossum died in my garage last week. (No, really, it was dead. I know everyone always thinks they've found a dead opossum because they flop over when they get scared, but this one was in rigor and the fleas were jumping off.)

I could have put it in the green waste bin (or even the trash, I guess), but the next trash pickup was five days away and I didn't really want something rotting in this heat three feet from my house.

Burying the body was also an option, but my soil is like cement unless you leave water soaking in for a day.

So I did what I usually do, and put it in one of my "decaying animals" planters and then covered it in potting soil. But to do so, I had to make some room, so I ended up pulling out some nicely cleaned bones from a feral cat that died in the alley a few years ago. I could have spent more time and pulled out the rest of the vertebrae and long bones, but I just wanted to get the opossum buried before the fleas found me.

(A friend is going to take these bones.) Is it weird to have planters of decaying animals? Maybe. But skeletons are interesting and what else am I supposed to do with these things? In a few years, there will be a lovely opossum skull for somebody to have.

Foster Updates

I currently have the house of ringworm and rabies quarantine.

(l-r) Kitty Tuna, Francis Noodle, Prince

Today was lime sulfur bath day, so these guys are disgruntled. So are the five (Bubbles, Lebron, Choco, Anakin, and Isa — not pictured) in the spare room. Hey, it's no fun for me either — I have to dip eight cats and then clean and bleach two entire rooms. It takes 3+ hours and my back is killing me.

On the other side of the hall, these two are just being cute. (They don't have ringworm yet.)

front: Amina; back: Tinbu

Amina is technically on rabies quarantine for one more day since she bit the person who brought her to the shelter hard enough to draw blood. I am more likely to have rabies than a five-week-old kitten, but rules are rules. Anyhow, her upper respiratory infection has cleared up and she has a new buddy in Tinbu.

Nimbus (not pictured) has moved into my bedroom. He's enjoying the opportunity to attack my feet every morning.

That's the eleven current fosters!