I spoke with Raven Ridge today, where they are rehabilitating the squirrel that I brought in. He is doing well, which is a big relief. Also he is with two other baby squirrels, which is also a very good thing.
When I was traveling with him in the cooler, the lid was closed, but the cooler has a rather large hole drilled into it because I use it as a Tempeh incubator, so there was no danger of him not getting enough air.
Tempeh is a meat substitute that is essentially a dense “Mushroom Cake” that is made from beans that are coated with a special kind of spores that are then incubated at a precise temperature. It pretty much has the same consistency (and even vaguely tastes) of Swiss cheese when sliced and eaten raw, but it doesn’t melt when cooked like cheese does, and it more or less has the consistency of a meat when it is cooked, such as when it is fried. Therefore it is often used as the primary ingredient in vegan gyros, as well as used as a patty in vegan hamburgers and other types of sandwiches.
See many pictures of Tempeh and ways that it is prepared on Wikipedia.
The website Betsy’s Tempeh is where I learned about it. It is delicious, even if you are not a vegetarian or a vegan. It is traditionally made from Soybeans, but I make it using Adzuki beans instead.
(Also sometimes I hear claims that the political Establishment is conspiring to “eliminate meat,” and “make everyone eat mashed bugs instead,” however I don’t think they actually intend to change the global chain of meat production, for many reasons.)
Here is the incubator that I built. The hole in the cooler is to allow cords into it, because the setup makes use of an aquarium heater and an air stone on the bottom of it in a water bath, as well as a temperate sensor that regulates the heat. The dish becomes filled with a solid block of Tempeh after a few days.
I’m glad that I had the cooler for the little guy because the bus was so air conditioned that it was like a cold refrigerator during the rather long trip, which felt great but it would have been a big problem for him. The cooler more or less trapped the previous hot air from the outside, although I felt a need to open it near the end of the trip, so I put the towel on top of him to keep him warm.
I hope all is well..