As you know, Wednesdays are Bagel Days! We take this day to do a long ride as well — about 7 miles prior to breakfast and then 10 or 11 miles after breakfast. Gotta work off that bagel:
We were on the post breakfast ride. John was riding in front of me and he looked back a couple of times. He said he saw something orange in the shoulder and it was moving. He wanted to go check it out. We turned around and I spotted it in the middle of the road! There were cars coming and I thought for sure it would be squished by the time we got to it. However, fate smiled on the little guy and I scooped him up.
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Turns out this is a juvenile Eastern red spotted newt (salamander). The adults end up larger and green.
He was pretty active and unafraid:
Look at him strutting his stuff! LOL.
I learned more about this newt via the DEC website:
- This salamander is native to NY.
- This guy can live 12 to 17 years! Provided he doesn’t get run over by a car…
- They eat mosquito larvae. Now we just need 100 of them in our back yard right now.
- The babies excrete a poisonous toxin. Yikes! I was thinking I was more worried about salmonella, but okay. The color of the juveniles warns away predators.
Pretty neat! It’s always fun to find wildlife.
On a side note, I will share some of my business stuff. Normally I don’t get much time to experiment and the like just because of everything that needs to get done, but I am trying to do more with our products to showcase what they can be used for. Activated charcoal is one of the new “in” things. I see people brush their teeth with it, use it for masks, etc. It is also popular in soap as an acne bar. Of course, you are not supposed to make a medical claim about your soap because then it becomes a drug and the FDA can go after you. I see too many soapers making claims on their soap.
At any rate, I am working on a tutorial for activated charcoal soap and this is the end result:
The top design is made with a spoon if you can believe that. I don’t do this with my regular soap bars because they won’t fit into my boxes if I do that. But this batch is just for show so I wanted to have some fun. It’s all shiny because it is fresh soap (also called wet soap) and at a very thick pudding stage here. This will be ready to try in about a month. Soap is a very creative medium.
Hi Lori – my daughter has very problematic skin & I would love to have her try your activated charcoal soap. Let me know when you will have it available.
Thank you, Karen
I can let you know. It’s a bit of an experimental bar, FYI.
OK, so I wouldn’t have picked it up, but I do thing the orange salamander is beautiful.
The little guy is cute and very colorful. I guess it isn’t rare or anything, but still interesting to find on the road. I had better not see a little squished orange blob in the road next time I ride through there.
LOVE that salamander & the color!!!!! The soap is cool too! I buy my muscle balms from a guy that sells soap & beard products too, He just made a charcoal one.. I knew about this back when but it is in now…. my old face does not need it but I have read both sides to this debate… That design is cool! I just buy the muscle balms but he did send me a free soap back when when he first started.
The salamander is very pretty! Once in a while we find one in the yard, but it is usually blue. And so interesting about the soap!
Wow! So cute!! I wouldn’t have picked him up, either, but I’d take cute photos. LOL