Somewhere in this post is a snake
A cranky, but ultimately happier, snake.
Crowley, the wee pretty snakey of a year ago, is less wee, and heading towards possible "Medium Crowley" status or, even, "Bigger than Medium Crowley but not as Big as Big Crowley" status. Big Crowley is, of course, somewhere in England, in a mint-condition Bentley, causing traffic jams1. But in his early days, I'm pretty sure, Big Crowley looked a lot like little Crowley. Or like the black racer that bit my dad on the finger once while he was demonstrating proper snake handling technique.
I digress.
Little snake is getting big (other snake, who was already big, is not growing these days and has settled down to a quiet life of waiting for the Mouse Rain).
So when we came back from Christmas, we brought with us a bigger aquarium what used to belong to my dad before he emptied out his herpetarium.
Crowley's old house was a 5 gallon aquarium. The new one, well, it's a little larger:
Dad designed, and we got about halfway through the production of, the lid, with two sliding panes and a cat-proof ventilation system. I've been finishing it up over the past three days.
We dumped Crowley into it, he immediately stretched out full length to demonstrate that he is, in fact, longer than the tank, then dug under the bedding where he continues to hide, muttering about how much he hates everything and there had better be a mouse or ten come along real soon.
1Incidentally, the curious among you may wish to know that you, too, can cause traffic jams without great expenditure, risk, or transgression of the law. All that is needed is a good sense of timing and an understanding of what my brother tells me is called a Self-Organizing Criticality. He tries to enlighten me about nuclear war between destabilized petro-states, and all I can think is "I'm going to try that traffic jam trick next time I'm on I-40."
Crowley, the wee pretty snakey of a year ago, is less wee, and heading towards possible "Medium Crowley" status or, even, "Bigger than Medium Crowley but not as Big as Big Crowley" status. Big Crowley is, of course, somewhere in England, in a mint-condition Bentley, causing traffic jams1. But in his early days, I'm pretty sure, Big Crowley looked a lot like little Crowley. Or like the black racer that bit my dad on the finger once while he was demonstrating proper snake handling technique.
I digress.
Little snake is getting big (other snake, who was already big, is not growing these days and has settled down to a quiet life of waiting for the Mouse Rain).
So when we came back from Christmas, we brought with us a bigger aquarium what used to belong to my dad before he emptied out his herpetarium.
Crowley's old house was a 5 gallon aquarium. The new one, well, it's a little larger:
Dad designed, and we got about halfway through the production of, the lid, with two sliding panes and a cat-proof ventilation system. I've been finishing it up over the past three days.
We dumped Crowley into it, he immediately stretched out full length to demonstrate that he is, in fact, longer than the tank, then dug under the bedding where he continues to hide, muttering about how much he hates everything and there had better be a mouse or ten come along real soon.
1Incidentally, the curious among you may wish to know that you, too, can cause traffic jams without great expenditure, risk, or transgression of the law. All that is needed is a good sense of timing and an understanding of what my brother tells me is called a Self-Organizing Criticality. He tries to enlighten me about nuclear war between destabilized petro-states, and all I can think is "I'm going to try that traffic jam trick next time I'm on I-40."