Friday, April 17, 2009

You'll find the oddest things in our barn!

I have a confession to make...

In my barn, I have a severed head floating in a jar of water. No, not a HUMAN head! I get ticked at Gordon sometimes, but it's never gotten THAT dire. No, it's the head of that animal Tristan brought me about a month ago. To be exact, he dropped it at my feet. I could post a photo, but I'm thinking most blog viewers reeeeally wouldn't want to see it. That deceased star-nosed mole shot was bad enough. At least IT was fresh.

Now why, you may ask, do I have this head in a jar? Well, since moving here I have been collecting the various animal skulls and bones I find around the farm. That's the amateur naturalist in me! But besides that, my friend's 10-year-old-son is an even bigger nature-lover than I am (if such a thing is possible.) And when he and his family visited last summer, I showed him the bone collection. He was enthralled! I now have to email him a complete report of everything interesting thing I find on the farm, which he follows up with 101 questions.

So even though Tristan's gift of an animal head was vile and disgusting, I knew that under all that gore lay a very neat and complete skull.

However, I would not have known how to uncover this bony treasure were it not for the fact that I now know a very nice palaentologist (you rock, Nature Boy!) who has kindly given me instructions on how to macerate a skull. Not only that, Nature Boy thinks the head might belong to something as interesting as a pine marten! Neither of us knows for sure right now, but if I have a clean skull, Nature Boy can do the I.D.

Wellllll, first I had to cut off the excess fur and, ahem, skin (more like rawhide after spending so much time outside) from the noggin. I should point out that I have an extremely weak stomach when it comes to bad smells. It doesn't take much to get me heaving! So I put on a truly lame dusk mask. Let's just say it was not adequate for the task, and it's a good thing I didn't ingest one of Gordon's big breakfast fry-ups beforehand. Between heaves, I cut off as much gunk as possible, then ran from the barn gasping for air. There's a reason I'm an artist and not a scientist. Or, God forbid, a coroner. I have no problems viewing gore when necessary (not that I seek it out!) but smell is a whole other issue. I think it's a blessing I never became a mother, because my poor child would have had its Mum changing diapers while clad in a Hazmat suit. Which no doubt would have led to a large and lifelong set of neuroses for the baby.

Anyway, the trim job was enough amateur-naturalism for one day. My noble husband kindly found me a jar and I managed to drop the head inside, but I didn't have enough stomach left to fill it with water, which would initiate the maceration process. So the jar sat in the barn for a week, sealed with a tight lid. Let's just say it's a good thing we don't live in Bangkok, instead of pleasantly chilly Canada.

Yesterday, I finally plucked up my courage to finish what I'd started. Or rather, to finish the start of the process. I found a brand-new dust mask, stuffed it with sage leaves from my herb garden (hoping they'd mask the smell), went down to the barn and poured in the water. I got the lid back on and ran, but this time the mask did its job and I didn't smell a thing.

The problem is, I realized today that instead of filling the jar 7/8ths full of water as instructed, it's more like 4/8ths. So I fear I will have to go out there today and add water.

And is the end of the process? Why no, dear readers. Once a week, for however long it takes, I have to take the jar out to the field and pour off whatever vile liquid it contains (liquid brains, probably!) then refill it with clean water. For this, I have decided I need a real respirator-type mask, because from what Nature Boy told me, I understand the stink will be pretty potent.

If you were wondering about my sanity after those sock-monkey videos, you can stop wondering now because I think you have your answer. Nevertheless, this summer a certain ten-year-old boy is going to be HUGELY impressed with me when he visits. And that's all that really matters, right? That I'm a hero to a kid? :)

PS Anyone got a used Hazmat suit?

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:43 am

    oh god this makes me want to HURL just to read it .. rrruuuurrrppp. good think i haven't eaten yet today.

    ok pouring off that water is just going to be TOO MUCH. I swear I don't think i could do that. can't you just hang the damn thing in a tree and just come back at the end of summer?

    ya shore gots some balls. hahhaha.

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  2. If I hung it in a tree, I swear Sophie would climb the tree and get it...

    I don't gots balls, I lacks sanity!

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  3. The things paleontologists do!

    I'm sure you've already considered this, but I would take a pail of nice clean water out into the field before you try moving Mr. Head-in-a-jar.

    And above all, BREATHE THROUGH YOUR MOUTH!

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  4. Looks like the Monatuak Monster:

    http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.scrapetv.com/News/News%2520Pages/usa/Images/montauk-monster.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.scrapetv.com/News/News%2520Pages/usa/pages/After-Texas-Chupucabra-sighting-Americans-bracing-for-monster-invasion-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side.html&usg=__SyAVAGE_J2zxBTJDBX4Nv-RwdBs=&h=288&w=460&sz=33&hl=en&start=10&um=1&tbnid=IVSuUL7OnUetjM:&tbnh=80&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmontauk%2Bmonster%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1

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  5. OR, try this link:
    http://tinyurl.com/dhgpw6

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  6. Um, actually it does look like the Montauk monster.

    And that was the longest URL I have ever seen in my life.

    Um, no, HWB, I hadn't thought about the pail of water...

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  7. I think my face had the most interesting expression throughout this whole post... sort of "ewwwww...." frozen smile.

    I am very, very impressed; as a science major I don't think I could even stomach that.

    I'm sure my kids would be glued to the screen if you were to post a pic, though. They're into that stuff, apparently ;)

    (okay, your word verification is "expleens"... LOL!)

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  8. Karen, I don't think this is something I could have done in high school. Which worries me, because it means I'm getting more... eccentric? ;)

    And HWB, 'breathing through the mouth" would absolutely not cut it here. Respirator or fume hood, yes, closing off nostrils? Insufficient for the task at hand!

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Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!