posted March 27, 2008 03:23 PM         

After some inquiring I realized that the green streaks had come from the green mouse poison we had layed out.

The mice had been nibbling on poison, then had a taste of my chicken.

I decided to rinse off the pieces with no green on them and eat them anyway.

posted March 27, 2008 03:49 PM         

Boys...puppy dog tails and snails and all that I guess

posted March 28, 2008 02:52 PM         

quote:

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But rats have gotten a bad rap for causing many things that were actually nutrition-related.

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Interesting Randall, care to share the "things"?

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 28, 2008 05:00 PM         

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 28, 2008 05:15 PM         

But I can't see how it was the cause.

posted March 29, 2008 02:56 PM         

~ http://www.william-shakespeare.info/bubonic-black-plague-modern-day.htm ~

~ http://www.william-shakespeare.info/bubonic-black-plague-elizabethan-era.htm ~

~ http://www.theglasgowstory.com/story.php?id=TGSAA ~
1560 .. monk mungo ..
" They worried about food, that is, acquiring enough of it. Mungo was a vegetarian - except on visits to the great and the good, after which he would diet. He favoured dairy products. On the whole most people subsisted on cereals and vegetables. People rejoiced when, on one occasion, the flooded Clyde miraculously failed to engulf the royal granaries containing stored wheat. Absence of meat and monotony of diet probably made them lethargic. It has been suggested that to modern eyes medieval folk would have seemed to be functioning almost in slow motion. "

~ http://www.iomguide.com/ballasalla/monks-diet.php ~
Herbs from the garden were used to flavour food, and also beer and wine.

~ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article707018.ece ~

i've come to the conclusion .. the only good house mouse is 6 ft. under in a lead-lined box ..
am now fairly sure a past brush with residentional rodent residee's ..
was the cause of a localised skin infection that took a dose of penicillin to finaly cure ..

posted March 29, 2008 08:34 PM         

I've found sources on the web that said that monks were victims of the Bubonic Plague too.

Here's an article describing how monks were obese. I can't tell how this diet would be different from a regular schmuck's.

Bones reveal chubby monks aplenty
Martin Wainwright
The Guardian, Thursday July 15 2004

The full truth about one of Britain's favourite historical fatties has been tracked down by a three-year study of overweight medieval monks.
Robin Hood's companion Friar Tuck had hundreds of real-life counterparts, according to a newly published analysis of skeletons in three monastic burial sites in London.

Suet, lard and butter were wolfed down in "startling quantities" by the closed communities, whose abbots often depended on arranging large and regular helpings to keep their flocks under control.

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach and this seems specially to have been the case with monks," said Philippa Patrick, of the Institute of Archaeology, at University College, London. "They were taking in about 6,000 calories a day, and 4,500 even when they were fasting."

Arthritis in knees, hips and fingertips showed that the often under-employed monks were seriously obese.

Ms Patrick, whose findings were revealed to the International Medieval Congress, meeting in Leeds, said: "Their meals were full of saturated fats. They were five times more likely to suffer from obesity than their secular contemporaries, including wealthy merchants or courtiers."

The reckless scoffing was in clear breach of St Benedict's austere rules laid down probably in 530, which warned: "There must be no danger of overeating, so that no monk is overtaken by indigestion, for there is nothing so opposed to Christian life as overeating."

Critics, such as Peter the Venerable, who slated monks for "wearing furs and eating fat", were advised however that Benedict had also warned about grumbling: "Brethren would indeed grumble if deprived of the food to which they are accustomed."

The skeletal data, from 300 sets of bones found at Tower Hill, Bermondsey, and Merton abbeys, includes information on a medical condition known now as Dish (diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis) triggered by overeating and a rich diet. "The marks of Dish keep appearing on their skeletons. It forms a coating on the spine like candlewax dripping down the side," said Ms Patrick.

The findings tally with satire that developed a keener edge after the Black Death and food shortages. Friar Tuck was only one of many fat fictional characters based on medieval churchmen by resentful lay storytellers.

The new evidence backs records from Westminster Abbey, showing that six eggs a day was normal for monks. In the middle ages, monkish obesity was Europe-wide. The Portuguese Cistercians had a test: monks unable to squeeze through a certain doorway at Alcobaca monastery's dining room had to fast while slimmer colleagues tucked into "pastry in vast abundance".

Friar's tucker

A 13th century Cluniac friar's possible daily intake based on Ms Patrick's studies:

11am-1pm Three eggs, boiled or fried in lard. Vegetable porridge with beans, leeks, carrots and other produce of monastery garden. Pork chops, bacon, and mutton. Capon, duck and goose with oranges. Half pound of bread, to use as sop. Peaches, strawberries and bilberries with egg flan. Four pints of small (watery) beer.