meet Carlin

Meet the newest resident of the Once and Future Gin Place. He moved in a week ago and has been making himself at home ever since. This picture was taken of him basking in his favourite spot in the house and he will tell you when he thinks it's high time he got to sit there.



All my previous experience is with snakes and I honestly did not expect this guy to be as inquistive, social and engaged as he is. I am utterly charmed. We've spent the week getting to know each other and he seems to be perfectly happy sitting on my lap or climbing me like a tree.

Like snakes he's cold-blooded so I wasn't surprised that he eats a lot less than I would expect from a mammal of the same size. jo had also warned me that it would often take him a full week to getting around to eliminating the ah, processed remains of that food. What did surprise me was just how much more um, pungent it is than snake poop. And that apparently he could get it into his head to roll in it afterwards. At least I think that's what happened given how much of it he managed to get all over himself.

Obviously I figured I was going to need to clean him up. And since Axel is away this weekend that meant cleaning both him and his tank single-handed. No problem, I would bring everything upstairs that I needed to sterilize the tank, then give him a bath and I would be able to clean his house while he was drying in his favourite spot on the windowsill. So I fetched bleach, soap, gloves and a scrubbie and set them up in the upstairs shower. Then I opened the top of his cage and lifted him out.

He promptly scrambled up my arm and settled onto my shoulder.

Keep in mind that he is completely covered in poop.

I tried to get him down but I had made the mistake of wearing a woven shirt that had lots of places for him to tangle his claws into if he didn't want to be budged. Which he didn't. Finally I gave up and just walked down the two flights of stairs to the basement bathroom with him on my shoulder, steadying him in place with one hand on his back.

Once in the bathroom I leaned over slightly to turn on the water in the tub. Carlin immediately took that opportunity to scramble onto my back.

So I'm standing there, bent over, with a poop-covered beardie perched on my back. I can sorta reach him but there is no way I have enough hands to pick him up while simultaneously untangling his claws from my shirt. Finally I figured out that I could solve the whole situation by pulling my shift off over my head - with him in it. Once I had him in front of me I was able to disentangle him from my clothes and put him into the warm water.

We hung out there for about 15 minutes while I gently cleaned him from nose to tail. He didn't seem to mind the water at all. Finally when he was fit for public appearances once again and since the water was starting to cool off I picked him up to take him upstairs to his basking spot.

And that's when he crapped all over me.