Inktrails from Alaska

Attack of the Feral Rabbits, 2006 : Part 1

I was irritated to find that two rabbits escaped my efforts at catching and rehoming them all last year. In Fall of 2005 I got a cat trap from Animal Control and caught and found homes for twelve rabbits. But as spring came forward, so did two black bunnies, one with a white-tipped paw.

I was busy, I was getting ready for a trip, it was still cold outside, there were so many reasons why I wanted to wait to catch these rabbits. So I got started a little late only to find a third rabbit had joined them and apparently this last rabbit was a female. Damn it. How do I know she's a female? The appearance of at least three baby rabbits. Feck.

Well, about a week ago I went and got another cat trap from animal control. It had a different mechanism and was pretty tightly strung. I couldn't get any of the rabbits to pay any attention to it at all, no matter how much nice green, expensive lettuce I put in it. (Lettuce is often close to $2 a head here. Takes lettuce to buy some lettuce in this town.)

The baby rabbits are out on their own and have made their own little rabbity apartment in a stack of lumber under the deck next to the house. So I put the cat trap right by their entry hole. Twenty four hours go by. Nothing, no caught rabbits. But wait, what's this? Some of the lettuce is gone? What the heck?

I put more expensive Alaskan lettuce in the trap, waited 20 minutes and went out and looked. Sure enough, there were little bitty rabbits frolicking in and out of the cage with nary a care in the world. There is no way in heck that trap will spring for such little babies. I doubt it would even trip for a grown-up bunny, not to mention these little cuties.

Back to Animal Control and I explained my problem. They agreed that the trap was bogus for catching rabbits and gave me another, in fact, gave me a teeny one for the babies (it's really a squirrel trap) and a big one for the adults. These traps are much easier to trip. "Well, the babies have been trained to go in the trap, so it ought to be easy now!" I said on my way out.

Maybe it was finding yummies in the old trap, or maybe this is just a better trap, but regardless, I now have three baby bunnies in my holding cage. Two black ones and one grey one.

As for the adults rabbits, they are still wary of the big trap. I stepped outside to see if they'd gotten caught and found the upstairs cat nearly inside it. While the rabbits watched from ten feet away, she explored the whole thing verrrrrrrrrry carefully, and I know if there had been something cat-yummy inside, she would have gone right in. Well, it's a cat trap, after all. Let's hope that's not what the rabbits think.

Wow, What a Difference a Day Makes!

Yesterday I was complaining that spring had not sprung in my part of the world. I was sick of brown ground and bare trees. Tired of flat, gray grass and black branches. Sure, we've had a really nice  dry breakup with no mud season to speak of. But still, there are piles of snow around and even those are depressing since they are covered with the layers of gravel scraped off the road by the plows. Yuckola.

Imagine my surprise when I got up this morning and all the leaves were out! We've gone from brown and bare to bright green all over the place, from chokecherry trees to birches, we've got green busting out all over the hillsides! Way to go, Mama Nature!

Could it be.........SATAN?

Notice the glowing red eyes....and the reproductive glint....
(Click to see larger photo)

Game Obsession!

My current heroin is Super Candy Crunchers, over at Gamehouse.

Whenever I have dishes to do, carpets to vacuum, clothes to wash, clutter to put away, what do I do?

Play computer games, of course!

Online computer games make evil procrastination way too easy. Places like Gamehouse and Iwin.com offer hundreds of java and flash games of a variety that is bound to have something for everyone. And it sure keeps you away from the vacuum cleaner!

I'm a puzzle type of person, not a shoot-em-up network game person. I don't really want to steal a car or be a member of a gang. Not even in video. Watching my son and his friends play Grand Theft Auto on their Playstation was one of the most alarming things I've done in a while. In the true spirit of GTA my son would get sick of getting killed and simply cheat and get himself a jet and fly away from the cops. The whole game is about cheating, so why not? Seems like a cheating game is self-defeating.

No, I'm Mom and I'm not into shooting, monsters (unless it's Zombies Ate My Neighbors, a very silly, old SNES game I have that's all cartoony, campy and silly with a definite 50s monster movie flair), soldiers, vampires, and all that. And I don't want to play those online network games, that's way too much pressure. I play games to relax.

Well, sort of. Actually, I play the games I play in order to exercise my brain. I play strategy puzzle games for the most part. And it does keep my brain sharp. Of course it's also more fun than doing dishes. If you go to Gamehouse to find the games I mention, look under Puzzle games. That's where they are.

The most wonderful game so far is Incredible Ink. The graphics are just gorgeous. You haven't seen anything else like this before. There is a ball, there is a quill pen, and there are obstacles. You use the quill to draw a line to guide the ball through the hazards. It's a simple idea, but a different one. There is a second mode for the game where you use the ball to break bricks, rather than run a maze. Both modes are just as engaging as they could be. The music is just beautiful! There is no online tryout for this game, but all the Gamehouse games can be downloaded and tried in demo.

ShapeShifter is the first one that got me. It has a circus theme, great music, and graphics that include mockups of old-fashioned circus posters. I really like designers who pay homage to graphics of the past. Incredible Ink does that, too. The folks designing these games are real designers, not just someone copying a style such as anime (barf) or trying to look "computery." Since I'm a graphic artist myself I appreciate the work these folks put into these games.

Super Candy Crunchers is not as much eye candy as the other two games, but it's still agreeable to look at. The music is very nicely Willy Wonka-ish, and the sound effects are great as long as you disable that stupid siren alarm in the Options menu. It takes a while to build up your skills on this one. I played the demo for a month before I bought it.

Jewel Quest can be slow. I'll say that right off. It's also fun, though! It has the least well-done graphics of the bunch, too. However there is a slow buildup of difficulty that will eventually get you involved. It's nice because they don't make it too hard right away, they give you plenty of time to work on your chops. I really don't like the music in this game and generally turn it off. Then it's quiet, with levels that get progressively harder and more challenging. It's not a frantic game at all. Really rather zen, actually.

Games have come a long way from the bit-mapped shareware things we used to have. Go check these out, they also have lots of word games, which I like a lot (Text Twist is great fun), and casino games and all that. Action, shoot-em-ups if you absolutely have to have that.

Not that I'm trying to sabotage your house cleaning. Really.

Squirrel Cam Fans!

Bring home a little bit of Alaska. A little bit of the Great Alaskan Red Squirrel Cam that is. Maybe you can't come up her to visit me (but you really ought to) but now you can wear the little guys that Sofie would LOVE to EAT right on your chest.

My friend Bob has been providing the Squirrel Cam for years for free. I hope you'll want to go check out the images and get the t-shirt.  Click the image for a close-up of the shirt.