Ukraine and the USA have signed an agreement on mining minerals
in Ukraine. As this phone screenshot shows, “... a win for Kyiv, which has been seeking any
concrete show of support from the United States since President Donald Trump returned to
power 25 minutes ago”.
It didn't seem to be painful, but in the course of the morning it increased in size, and he
no longer wanted us to touch it. It's not clear whether that's because it was sensitive or
whether we were just annoying him. But clearly something needed to be done. Yvonne facebooked Pene Kirk, who was out of town, but could see him
tomorrow.
Can we wait that long? No, I don't think so. Made an appointment with the Bannockburn Veterinary Clinic and took him down
there in the afternoon, along with Mona not just for company, but in case it was something infectious. Put the carriers so that
they were facing each other, and they didn't make any noise the whole distance.
Jen, the vet, tried to take a sample from the swelling. Bruno disagreed, violently. In the
end she called in a nurse, who tried to muzzle him, without success:
Finally they carted him off out the back, where I wasn't allowed, to sedate him (I had the
impression of a large hammer) and lance what proved to be an abscess. An hour later he looked like
this:
Jen tells me that they didn't find any injury—she had thought it might be the result of a
fight with another cat, but I don't think there are any round our way—and that there was no
evidence of any injury in his mouth.
That's quite an opening, but maybe it's necessary to drain the abscess. He seemed to be
well, but Mona didn't want to know him: “Who are you, and what did you do with Bruno?”. The
dogs were, of course, sympathetic. But he didn't want company, though he didn't seem to be
suffering, and by the time we went to bed he was relatively normal. Only Mona still didn't
want to know: she kept trying to get into my bedroom half the night.
Now that lard is not only hard to
find but also very expensive, how about reconsidering making it myself? Found this in the
deep freeze, once intended for making Bratwurst:
Clearly those days are long gone. But look at that price! $5 per kilogram. They have
since changed their name from the “Mega Meats” on the label to Sinclair Meats, where they sold us lard for round
$55 per kilogram.
That's a surprising number from only 350 g of fat—if indeed there was that much. But the
lard that came out was not only discoloured, but it smelt rancid:
That's possibly because it was so old, but I wouldn't have expected that in the deep freeze.
But since it looks like we may need to do this more often, I should check the details of how
to make it without discoloration.
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