This past weekend I spent a lot of time outdoors and my muscles are still kinda sore from it. On Saturday I went out hiking in the woods with a couple of strangers I met on the internet. (Hah. I couldn’t help being overly dramatic there. It’s okay though, they were geocachers.) We found a couple of geocaches in the Depot Lakes Conservation Area, one of which I’ve been keen to get to for about three years. Photos: swamp bridge, power lines, campsite, strangler vine, picnic futon.
On Sunday Christine and I went for a bike ride on Wolfe Island. The weather was a bit smoggy and the ozone bothered my throat but it was nice to finally get out on my bike again. We rode along the route of the Wolfe Island Classic running race out to the Simcoe Island ferry, and I enjoyed watching the kilometer markers go by. One day I’ll get off my butt and enter one of those races. We passed by my favourite goat a couple of times (she’s as fat as always), and also stopped to visit a couple of horses.
I’ve been thinking lately about getting a couple of rats. I’ve read that every rat has a very distinctive personality and they make really good pets. They can be house trained and even come when you call their name. They can easily identify humans by their smell and are loyal to their owners just like dogs are. I even read about one rat owner on the web who would crawl on her hands and knees on the floor with her rat on her back, and the rat learned to drive around the room her like a car!
I think the closest rattery to Kingston is in Ottawa, so maybe I will have take a trip on the train. Or maybe I’ll go to the Belleville Humane Society. I know I don’t want to buy any rats from a pet store since almost all of them buy their rodents from rat mills that exist primarily to make a profit providing live meals for snakes.
Today I subscribed to the mailing list of the Ontario Chapter of The Rat and Mouse Club of America.
Here’s a video of somebody’s pet rat. It looks like they have a three-storey powder-coated steel cage from this company in Pennsylvania. Those cages are really nice, but they cost about $100 US, and I bet shipping and customs is quite a bit too. Maybe I can make my own cage somehow…
Yesterday Sue Meech from the Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre called Celine and said the bat we brought there in January was ready to be released. She wanted the bat to be set free within 20 meters of the place he was found, and near a tree. So at dusk last night Connie (a volunteer at the centre) went to Celine’s apartment with the bat in her backpack. I went too, and Connie brought a friend named Brian (group photo). Brian used to own a record store in the same building and told me stories about standing in that very same hallway in 1980. His store was in Rheni’s studio.
We all went out onto the roof and Connie took the bat out. He was in a sock in box in her backpack. She had a second bat in another sock, and she and Brian were going to relase it at another house in Kingston. Celine opened up the sock and put it at her feet, and a minute later the little guy started wriggling out (close up). Once he was out he flew in two or three circles around the roof and then went straight into the crack between the buildings. He must be happy to be home!
The previous posts about the bat are here, here, and here.
