Another water leak!

Last Thursday morning, I happened to go down to the basement to check on the snakes and discovered that water was again leaking from where the main line to the house comes in. Although I had left the bucket there from the previous leak (nearly 2 months ago), it had filled up and overflowed, and there was already enough water on the floor to get several boxes wet. One stack had tipped over, putting its top box right under the leak! I still haven't had the courage to look into the boxes (some of them contain family pictures and other memorabilia!) and see what damage may have been done, but I think it's somewhat less than last time for 2 reasons: I found this one sooner, and there were simply less boxes nearby since I had moved most of them out last time.

I tried to find the plumber's number but discovered that I didn't have it. Thursday was a busy teaching day for me, so I wasn't even able to make any progress on the problem until late afternoon. I called our builder, Zion, to get the plumber's number and then called the plumber. He doesn't speak English, so I did my best to communicate in Hebrew. He said that he couldn't come because he was fasting (I assume that this means he's a Muslim, since we're now in the Islamic month of Ramadan when Muslims don't eat between sunrise and sunset). So I asked him if he could tell me of anyone else. The only suggestion he had was to call Zion, which I did. Zion said that he would call the plumber, but nothing came of that, so I called Zion back again, and he came over himself. We figured out how to turn off the water to the house, and we investigated enough to convince both of us that there was some kind of leak in the main line this time. Anyway, since them I've mostly been leaving the water entirely off, except for short periods so that we can occasionally flush toilets or do other things that require water.

According to Zion, the plumber will come on Sunday, but, frankly, I'll believe it when I see it.

First feeding for the last 2 regular clutches

Last Sunday, I fed all this year's babies. For the 4th and 5th clutches, this was their first time to be offered food. Here are the results:

In the 4th clutch (from D'vorah), 7 ate and 5 did not, which isn't so good. However, in the 5th clutch (from Y'hudit), 18 ate and only 1 did not, which is very good.

This last clutch is also one of the most interesting this year. We bred Yeled, our male amber (hypomelanistic caramel) corn snake, to Y'hudit, a female anerythristic corn snake. And we got very lucky! It turns out that Y'hudit is heterozygous (a recessive gene carrier) for hypomelanism, something that was not known before. Getting even one hypomelanistic baby would be enough to prove this. Once one knows this, one would expect about half the clutch to be hypomelanistic (reduced melanin, which makes brighter colors). However, we got 14 hypos and only 5 normals! Another interesting fact: the 5 normals all just happen to be males in this case. However, in another stroke of luck, only 4 of the hypos are male, whereas the other 10 are female. This also is good for future breeding plans with these babies (more females means a higher number of eggs in the project). When breeding a pair of these hypos (3 years from now), one would expect to get about 3/16 ambers, 3/16 ghosts (hypomelanistic anerythristics), and 9/16 hypos. The other 1/16 will be both amber and ghost, but will probably look either like ambers or ghosts (I not sure whether anerythrism overrides caramel or the other way around.).

Part of the deal we made when we got Y'hudit, however, is that we will give her previous owner (another friend of Golan's) part of the clutch. Exactly how many we're not sure, but we will certainly be able to keep some for ourselves.

Visit with our new neighbors

This afternoon (Shabbat), our newest neighbors, the Har-Evens, had invited us over for snacks and a chat. So, when I had finished feeding the snakes (all except this year's babies, who will be fed tomorrow), we went over next door. We had a delightful chat with them for about 3 hours, enjoying some nice snacks and refreshments. They are from England.

Snake sales

On Wednesday, we took some snakes to our snake breeder friend, Golan. We took the remaining 5 yearlings that we never intended to keep and 4 of this year's babies that have each eaten at least 3 times. All of these he will attempt to sell for us. In addition, we took 2 snakes that are both 2 years old but have recently been refusing to eat. Finally, we also took him the 8 babies from this year that have been steadfastly refusing to eat. Quite often, Golan and the guys who work for him have been able to get snakes to eat, so we hope that they will be able to save some or all of these. We also sat and talked for quite a while with Golan, comparing notes and just generally discussing snakes and snake breeding.

Update on David

On Wednesday (the day after he was released from the hospital), David felt pretty good, and we even took a trip to Matzuva to visit Golan (our snake breeder friend). But on Thursday, David was very tired and slept most of the day. On Friday, he felt a little better. We went to Kabbalat Shabbat services, eating at ספגטים ("Spaghetim", which, of course, means "spaghettis"), an Italian restaurant in Nahariya, before. We even had desserts, and perhaps that was part of the problem. At any rate, when David tested his blood sugar after we got back home (around 9:40), the meter just said "HI", which is NOT a greeting (moan!) but means it's somewhere over 600! He immediately gave himself 14 more units of insulin (he had already taken 16 units to cover the carbohydrates in the meal). Then we needed to stay up to make sure that his blood sugar didn't go too low. It took an hour or 2 before it even got below 600 so that we could see what it was. Then we needed to wait get at least 3 readings, separated by a half hour, in order to gauge how fast it was coming down. By the time we finished all this, it was after 1:00 a.m., which is WAY past our usual bedtime (around 9:30). Anyway, this morning (Shabbat morning), his blood sugar was normal, and he also felt better. Of course, neither of us got up very early! He has been tired and has slept quite a bit today, but he also has been feeling better.

Hatching season is virtually over

The last 2 clutched hatched last week. Now, there is only one egg left, which is the only good one from the only snake to lay a 2nd clutch, N'omi. This only should hatch near the end of September or in early October.

The last 2 clutches were from our 2 new girls, D'vorah and Y'hudit. D'vorah's clutch was about half normals and half amelanistics, since she is amelanistic and her mate, Gavnoni, is heterozygous for amelanism. He is also het for anerythrism (we know this only because we know his parents), but apparently she is not, since we got no anerythristics or snows (amelanistic AND anerythristic) from her. We got 12 babies from D'vorah, out of 15 eggs that she laid.

Y'hudit's clutch is about half normals and half hypomelanistics. This proves that she is het for hypomelanism, something which we did not previously know. Her mate was Yeled, who is an amber corn snake (both caramel and hypomelanistic). We got 19 babies from Y'hudit, out of 23 eggs that she laid.

All of these new babies will be fed for the 1st time next Sunday. Only then will we have some idea of how many will eat and how many will steadfastly refuse to eat.

David released from the hospital!

I just brought David home from the hospital! They released him today after finding no more evidence of stones in the CT scan that he had this morning. He is SO glad to be home, and he's also feeling much better!

He had begun to feel not so good late Saturday, and he really didn't feel very well Sunday at all. But Monday he felt better by mid-morning, and today he feels even better.

So, he spent a total of more than 12 and a half days in the hospital this time. The doctors and nurses really did a good job of taking care of him, and they were actually able to identify and fix the problem that brought him in. This is very encouraging!