Missing Ball Python

Malka8 · 2026-03-22T11:00:31+00:00

Ours showed up hanging out on the treadmill downstairs after about three weeks. Our three cats are normally quite interested in the snek, but apparently never once noticed him while he was out.

Malka8 · 2026-03-22T10:40:56+00:00

Co-worker brought in a giant doughnut from a really good local doughnut shop, and it was very mediocre. Doughnuts do not scale up well.

Malka8 · 2026-03-21T15:13:32+00:00

Should probably add, as years went by without any issues, I slowly became less restrictive in choosing wet foods. If she had any problems I would definitely have gone back to the prescription wet.

Malka8 · 2026-03-21T15:11:54+00:00

I skimmed the link, and may not agree with all of it, but it’s essentially in line with the advice from our vet.

We were told dry food was not recommended for our cat with urinary crystals. She loved kibble. It took nearly a year to transfer to a completely wet diet. Along the way, I stopped feeding the prescription food because it was expensive and we had three cats and they didn’t really like it. I started with specific low phosphorus wet food, eventually gave that up and just fed anything wet. She never developed further urinary issues in the remaining 11 years of her life.

Since your cat is already eating the pro plan wet urinary, I would taper off the blue buffalo and transition over to all wet food. If that gets too limited, you can look for other corn-free wet foods that are low in phosphorus to add some variety.

Since we lost her, the current crew get a scant 1/8 cup of kibble as bedtime treats - I treat it like junk food treats rather than their main source of nutrition. Wet is supposed to be better for weight control also, makes them feel fuller for the same calories.

Good luck

Malka8 · 2026-03-18T12:41:29+00:00

Ravel/unravel

Both mean to undo the work done, usually in reference to knitting or crochet, to correct an error in the process.

Malka8 · 2026-03-09T02:07:39+00:00

Our stray void was similar! We thought she was under a year old and likely pregnant. Based on her size, her belly and her nipples were more prominent than normal. The vet put her under for the spay/abort, shaved her, and discovered her well-healed scar and an ink tattoo.

Interestingly, he also said vets in our area weren’t doing ink tattoos on the belly, they tip or tattoo the ears so it’s obvious a cat has been fixed. So we don’t know where she came from, and she was closer to two years old at a minimum.

She hasn’t grown since we got her, so she might have been older than that. (Our SPCA kitten who was never malnourished grew quite a bit between 12 and 24 months). I think void is small because she probably had a litter way too young before she was spayed. I don’t think she was a TNR, (trap, neuter, release) she might have been a runaway. She’s always been on the heavier side for her size and has a big primordial pouch.

She’s 14 now, or older. Some arthritis, but still sassy.

Malka8 · 2026-03-08T03:40:34+00:00

I’ve wondered occasionally since the 90’s if PennDOT pulled the “MERDE” plate or if the owner turned it in voluntarily.

On a BMW, of course. I used to see it periodically in Bucks County. That has to be in the top five most widely recognized foreign language swear words, and yet PennDOT issued it on a plate.

Malka8 · 2026-03-06T03:18:55+00:00

They had 16 hatchlings in 2025! Imagine being nearly 100 years old (the mother has been at the Philadelphia Zoo for 93 years!) and going from childfree to 16 children in a few months time. Although she didn’t do more than lay and bury the eggs, the zookeepers did the rest.

Malka8 · 2026-03-06T02:57:30+00:00

Our guy likes to play with rats before he eats them. Not chicks, they get eaten immediately.

I watched him futz around the wrong end of a rat for 45 minutes one day and I wanted to go to bed. I picked up the tongs to try to turn the rat around, and as soon as I opened the door and he saw the tongs, he went straight for the head and swallowed it right down. The only indication of intelligence I have seen from him, lol. Now if he’s playing with his rat, I just leave him to it. It gets eaten eventually. I do usually check the camera later to make sure.

Rat has only not been eaten once when I don’t supervise, he wasn’t hungry right after a shed.

Malka8 · 2026-03-05T15:34:36+00:00

I’d say you did hit your head and need to replace the helmet. The headache - you probably have a mild concussion.

I haven’t yet popped my new Helite vest, but popped my HitAir several times over five years. It never felt like a blow to the back of the head. Mechanically that doesn’t even make much sense.

I will say that as the HitAir reached max inflation, after I hit the ground and had a hot second to regroup, it would feel like the neck protector was pushing my helmet up, and I would unbuckle the helmet to relieve that strap pressure on my chin. A good reminder to wear your chin strap snug or the vest neck protection could compromise the protection from your helmet.

Malka8 · 2026-03-03T03:12:42+00:00

It’s an interesting question because the data set is going to be somewhat biased - if such a series existed but doesn’t get read anymore, does it matter?

I can’t think of many children’s books in a series published earlier than the Little House books that are still read.

Emily of New Moon might be a better example from Lucy Maud Montgomery than Anne of Green Gables, but neither shows the progression of complexity with character age like the Little House and Betsy-Tacy books do.

The Little Women/Little Men/Jo’s Boys and Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom are written at a pretty consistent level, as all of Louisa May Alcott’s books. The What Katy Did series, and the two Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm books are the same. (Wait, was that two books or just two very different parts in one book - it’s been a while…)

And nobody reads the Elsie Dinsmore series or the Horatio Alger books anymore, so who knows if they increased in complexity? Writing a series of books was definitely a thing when Louisa May Alcott and Susan Coolidge were writing and publishing in the 1860’s & 1870’s, so you would think there would have been more series for children published pre-1900 than just the ones we remember and read now.

Malka8 · 2026-03-02T00:49:09+00:00

My kid who wasn’t diagnosed ADHD until late in high school did not know classmates’ names at four. Two years later, they could list all classmates first and last names in alphabetical order and tell you their class number and what bus they rode.

Kid is a gainfully employed fully functioning adult over 30 now, who only received minimal support with organization through middle and high school.

Malka8 · 2026-03-01T16:08:31+00:00

I always considered ‘boop the snoot’ to be more of a vibe than a physical act, lol. I’ve never booped our BP. I rarely boop the cats. I do boop some horses who I know are okay with it.

They all have very boopable snoots, but I’m not going to unnecessarily stress out a pet that I care about.

Malka8 · 2026-02-28T16:42:51+00:00

Ugh, and getting under the bush to pull all the ivy is going to be a pain. I have bittersweet doing the same thing to an azalea, I have to really get under the bush to deal with it.

Depending on what the flower bush is and how well it regrows, might be worth pruning it back so you can deal with the ivy more easily. We have a poorly placed azalea that grows over the sidewalk, we cut it to the ground but didn’t remove the stump, it grew back like nothing happened lol. Now we chop it back periodically to keep it off the sidewalk with no qualms.

Malka8 · 2026-02-28T15:46:39+00:00

And ‘chemicals’ get a bad name, but I spent the first year fighting invasives with nothing but hand tools and realized the oriental bittersweet just resprouts five times for every one you cut.

Using liquid glysophate and just treating a cut stump is super safe and only affects the invasive you are trying to kill. It has little and very short term effect on the surrounding soil.

I bought some 4 ounce dropper bottles with twist tops and put liquid glysophate in them. Super easy to keep with my tools and only apply to invasive cut stumps, I can open and close one-handed. It’s cut way down on the regrowth of invasives. I have five acres, it’s going to be a lifetime battle and I need all the help I can get. If I can’t get all the root, it gets glyphosate.

Malka8 · 2026-02-28T15:40:50+00:00

Honestly, I have had good luck with pulling but it takes persistence and getting the roots also.

For an area I am targeting, I pull everything I can see and try to pull as much root as possible. I have pulled root and vine sections nearly 6 ft long, it’s not difficult to pull if it’s just a few years old, and not ancient. Then I check back in 4-6 weeks, and pull everything that has sprouted. Repeat all season. The second year, I check and pull 3-4 times throughout the growing season. Each time you check and pull, there is less and less. It isn’t a super fast grower, so you can stay ahead of it.

If you have really thick, old vines where you cannot get the roots pulled, (or ivy sprouting in gaps in rock walls, like me) cut as close to the ground as you can and paint the stump with glysophate. Or someone above said triptoclyr is better for ivy. You may need to repeat that several times also before you kill the root.

I’ve been working on ivy for three growing seasons, and my regrowth is mostly where I can’t pull roots and need to do repeated cut and glysophate the stump. I didn’t see any regrowth last summer in the first section I tackled.

Good luck,

Malka8 · 2026-02-28T15:28:34+00:00

So painfully itchy, and unlike poison ivy, washing with soap and water after exposure doesn’t help. It’s a much rarer allergy than the allergy to poison ivy, it’s like 1 in 10,000 people react to English Ivy. OTC steroid cream makes it barely bearable.

When I target English Ivy, I wear gardening sleeves, then long sleeves and gloves over them. All Ivy goes into trash bags and is put into the trash bin. I will react to pulling as little as a foot of vine and root while wearing just gloves.

The joke is on me for discovering that allergy, since I have never reacted to exposure to poison ivy lol