We used to have a nature center in our garage. It mainly consisted of bits and things that we collected while traveling in the summer: rocks, sea skate egg cases, feathers, etc. One odd (in retrospect) group of specimens was the jars of dead animals preserved in alcohol. The animals chosen weren’t limited to things we captured while camping and eventually died. There were also pets like the little puffer fish. And a mole. I’m not sure how we got the mole, but it was most definitely from Salisbury. It looked mostly whole, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a mole obtained by mole trap.
It was neat as a kid. Finding the jars of dead animals as an adult while packing up the house and moving was kind of strange.
Jar mole and several other specimens are still with us. Mike took them to Athens; his roommate wanted them for props in a film. They will be joining the frozen spiders that he is storing in the freezer.
Frozen spiders? And you guys used to make fun of me for having frozen parakeets, mice, and various lizards in our freezer.
The funny thing is that while I was cleaning out a drawer, I found a little vial with a spider in it that I had saved. It must have been 20 years old and it looked fine. I don’t know why his roommate was freezing them.
Three questions:
What did you use to preserve them?
You still had them after 25 years?
Is your last name Dahmer?
Confusing pronoun reference there: Mike’s roommate already had the frozen spiders; we did not supply them. As the mom of the critter-preserving sons, I drew the line at creatures in the freezer. Not to point the finger though. As Tim said, it is pretty damn weird in retrospect.
To clarify:
What did you use to preserve the mole, snake, etc?
And why did you have them after 25 years?
“You” referencing Tim.
And I’m glad I didn’t help you move.
To clarify:
What was used to preserve the mole, snake, etc.
Why were these specimens still in your posession 25 years later?
I’m not sure what we preserved them with. Probably rubbing alcohol. As far as why I still had them, I didn’t. They were in the back of the garage on a shelf, where they’ve been sitting since we stuck them there years ago.
My prior comment was referring to Tim’s somewhat misleading initial post and Dick’s comment, not Elias’s comment.
i remember those…just a few of the many gems in that garage. but here’s the question – whatever became of the wooden-house-bank and the cane sword?
We still have the cane sword. Pretty sure I think. I’m sure we packed the house bank and are still in possession of it, but I don’t explicitly recall where in the house it currently is.
both of those items took the imagination from zero to fired-up in about half a second.