Thursday, October 8, 2009

Our winter boarder

We have a new guest in the house. His name is Fluffy. Or maybe it's a her, I don't know. He/she/it is an animal from the Nature Center at the camp that Chris works at, but we were offered a chance to have it during the winter. What? Did you ask if it was a rabbit? No, it's not a rabbit. A hamster? Nope, not a hamster. A gerbil? No. A guinea pig? No. A chinchilla? No. It's not a mammal. A... um... bird? Nope, it's not a bird, either. It's a snake, a very large (9 foot long) red-tailed boa. I have no idea who named it.

It's been a neat experience so far. He's quiet and easy to take care of (because that's Chris's responsibility, lol). And he can be fascinating to watch. Sometimes when he is stretching out he seems to defy gravity. The other day he curled up in his water bucket, with even his head submerged.

He only bites things he knows he can swallow, so as long as your hand doesn't look like a gerbil, he won't bite you. But I don't think anyone besides Chris has been brave enough to hold him. (Of course the little kids can't by themselves even if they wanted to because he's so heavy.)

4 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness!! I CAN'T STAND snakes!! They give me the hebie-gebies!! (I'm not sure how exactly you spell that!) Spiders and mice I'm ok with, but NOT snakes!

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  2. That is totally awesome! Do you have any gerbils to feed him? Mwhahahahaha...very awesome. You will have to post pictures! Maybe a facebook would help with that...lol couldn't resist. Adios.

    Shane Latham

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  3. Two totally different reactions - I love it!
    Ali: I wasn't too keen on the idea at first but the fact that it is safely contained in a secure box/cage helps. :) Plus I haven't seen it be anything but passive.
    Shane: I really wanted to post a picture but had technical difficulties. (See latest post) Yes, we have gerbils - in a set apart section of our freezer. We were offered a cage of live ones but we didn't want to deal with taking care of that.

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  4. Understandable why you would use frozen gerbils...though I think using live gerbils would be more fun...you could call it The Gerbil Gladiator Games! Of course, probably all that would happen would be "Squeak, squeak, squeak-CRUNCH." Lol. Hopefully you get your tech difficulties figured out. Have a good day. Maybe eventually we will talk on email or something.

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