August 28, 2009

• Updates: Kittens and Poison Shroom

  It amazes me how just touching the tip of my tongue to a pretty little yellow mushroom can have such lasting effects.  These guys are strong medicine, indeed!  By mid-day yesterday, the tongue tip and spot on my lip felt just as if I’d burned them with a hot liquid.  The lip now has some peeling skin there, and the tongue is sore and slightly swollen just back from the tip. 

  I still have not done an exhaustive search to try and identify this fungus.  One thing I know about it:  I have never seen it before.  I have been wandering in these woods for a quarter of a century, and have collected and identified many species of plants and fungi.  If these bright yellow pretties had been here, I would have seen them.  Either they are new to this region, or they are rare.

  Kitten news:  To recap, we started with seventeen:  First came Linda’s first litter.  She had seven.  Then PK had her second litter, of five, and lastly there was Bagel’s third litter, also five.

  On Monday, Greyfox took Linda and six of her kittens to town to find homes for them.  We kept Rasputin, the runt, because he wasn’t ready to be adopted and we weren’t ready to let him go.  PK had already accepted him as one of hers.

  Then we discovered that Bagel’s milk had dried up.  Two of her kittens were dead in their nest and the other three were very skinny.  We moved them into PK’s box, she accepted them, and was contentedly nursing all nine kittens.

  Yesterday morning, Koji, our big dog, jumped onto my bed and lay down on Rasputin.  Rasputin cried out, and when Doug came to check on him found him paralyzed.  Euthanasia.  Later in the day, Doug found another of Bagel’s little ones dead in the nest.  This leaves PK with a reasonable-sized brood of seven to care for.  Bagel behaves as if kittens are of no interest to her.  Greyfox has already found homes for two of Linda’s, and is considering keeping Tippy.

  • 2:46 pm
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