Lately at our house...

Funny thing happened tonight. I'm currently up with a touch of asthma (can't lie down or I cough), so I'm sitting here catching up on my groups. I heard Hubby sneak out to the fridge a while back and snickered as he opened the wrong door (freezer instead of fridge). He did a double-take, then came out to me holding a large ice-cream container with half a lettuce and a dead frog in it saying 'I know there's a good reason for a dead frog being in my freezer but... please explain...?'

One of the cats had caught the poor little thing and damaged it. Rather than killing it outright, I did what I usually do and put it in a container with wet lettuce and covered it with a dark tea-towel. After a few hours, it became apparent the little frog wasn't going to make it, so I put him in the fridge for an hour, then into the freezer. Well, obviously. That's the kindest way to euthanise a reptile or amphibian. Hunn is getting used to finding strange and unusual things in his fridge.

The next thing that happened recently was that my son was cycling in a park a few miles from home and happened upon an echidna ambling along in the grass verge! Now, echidnas are not uncommon in Australia, they're just not very visible. Mostly nocturnal, they feed on ants and termites and keep themselves to themselves: you only see them very occasionally and then only if you're paying attention. Matt feels really lucky to have spied this one, just goin' about his little echidnatic business in the park!

Fun stories! I'd flip if I found a frog anywhere in my house, let alone the freezer! LOL!

When I was a student at uni in a shared house with 7 other (usually drunk) students I got used to finding random *things in the house, but a dead frog with lettuce?!

You win....*

That's how I used to euthanize aquarium fish. They told me the nervous system just kind of slows down and they go to sleep... I still felt bad not knowing for sure if they suffered in there. Even felt bad for lower life forms like fish haha.

When I was doing my second year of Zoology, we were studying skeletal anatomy. One of our assignments was to prepare 'skeletal material' to museum exhibition standard.

Since I happened to be going out with one of my classmates at the time, I received a terribly interesting birthday present that year. He knocked at my door on the morning of my birthday and met me with his dazzling smile (awfully handsome bloke, that one).

"You'll never guess what I've got for you!" he announced.

Slowly unwrapping a large newspaper parcel on my mother's kitchen table, he revealed a dead possum (same kind as Tab's Sméagol). He smugly told me he'd seen it being hit by a car and had stopped promptly to 'grab it for you'! Do you get the implication of this?

I was given roadkill for my birthday.

I swiftly re-wrapped the parcel and applied fresh newspaper, stuffing it into the freezer until I could get to it. Of course, poor Mum took it out of the freezer the next morning in her search for something to defrost for tea that night. Just think how she felt when confronted by a passed-away possum that had been lurking in her very own freezer! Poor Mum. That's not the only time I did something like that to her, but it was the largest specimen I ever crammed in the freezer. Yes, I did boil it down and mount its skeleton eventually, but there was damage and it didn't turn out well enough to hand up. Oh well.

Later on, we had to collect a frozen-solid goat's head (Yep! Hair, eyes and all!) from the Department. We had to take these home and soak them in water until they became skulls. This was supposed to take two weeks. One poor woman had to fly from Armidale (nothern NSW) to Tasmania with hers! She had to ask a hotel manager if she could put her frozen goat's head in his kitchen freezer overnight. Can you imagine the look she got! Another caught a train with hers. It was wrapped thoroughly in plastic wrap and in a lidded plastic bucket but she made the mistake of putting it up in the luggage rack, whence it fell as the train took the loop around the Liverpool Ranges. The bucket burst open as it hit the floor and the head rolled all the way down the aisle, leaving plastic wrap in its wake and a grinning head at the end!!! I wish I'd seen that! LOLOLOLOL!

I took mine home by car. It remained decently frozen for the five-hour trip and I put it in water at the end. Then, I left on a trip to Lord Howe Island with the local Bird Observers' Group (got to see nine of the last remaining fourteen Lord Howe Island Woodhens on that trip). By the time I got home, my darling Mum had gotten the head almost down to a skull for me. I love my Mum. I drew the appropriate pen-and-ink drawing, labelled it and handed Gert the Goat up to my professor. I promise you, the high distinction I got was for my knowledge of cranial anatomy and the beauty of my calligraphic labelling. I did mention that my Mum had assisted in the production of my exhibit, honest! When Gert was handed back to me, I mounted her over my door in College where she grinned at my visitors for about five years. When I moved back to Newcastle, she got broken, so I've only got her jawbone left. It's in on my bookshelf with a few other odds and sods, such as the skull of the aforementioned roadkill, four horse's teeth and my gallstones.

This is why I would encourage any young person with an affinity for animals to consider studying Zoology. There really is never a dull moment! I have countless stories from those days and they will keep me smiling till the day I die.