EXOTIC ANIMALS AS PETS

Personally, I think it's a bad idea to keep an exotic animal such as a tiger or an alligator as a pet, but some people like to do this crazy thing anyway.  If you are one of these people, you need to find out what the laws are in your state about keeping exotic animals, because if you don't follow the law, you might get a big, fat fine or even end up in jail.  And I'm pretty sure you couldn't keep your pet orangutan in your cell with you for company.

In the past, there were some really goofy laws about exotic animals, like for example in Florida, if you tied an elephant to a parking meter, you had to put money in the meter, just like you would for a car.  I don't know if there were any rules about whether you had to clean up your elephant's poop or not.  Another law was that if you lived in Massachusetts, it was illegal to let a gorilla ride in the back of a car.  Maybe it was okay to let the gorilla sit in front and drive, but probably only if he had a license.

Most of these old laws have gone away, but some of the laws that are still around are sort of crazy, too.  For instance, in Florida, you can't own orangutans, leopards, or bears.  But you can keep almost any other kind of pet if you are at least 18, have a year's experience with that type of animal, and pass a written test to get a license.

 In Alaska, you can own all sorts of unusual animals, and you don't even have to have a permit.  But you can never let your exotic animal loose into the wild, so if you get tired of keeping it, you will have to find some other way to get rid of it.  Also, if you live in the city of Juneau, you cannot take any kind of pet into a hair salon, not even a dog.  I can't explain the reason for this law.  I am just telling you what it is.

People who live in North Dakota are not allowed to own skunks.  But animals such as ostriches, elk and donkeys are considered domestic animals.  So you can keep them on your farm, or even in your back yard in the city.

In Alabama, you can't have a jack rabbit, elk, mongoose, or piranha.  Otherwise, you can own whatever kind of strange animal you want, and you don't even need a permit, even if you live in a big city.

Well, after reading about these exotic animal laws, I started wondering what the law was in my very own state of Missouri.  And what I found out was that the law says the following animals are dangerous:  tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, margays, cheetahs, mountain lions, bobcats, Canadian lynx, jaguarondi, wolves, hyenas, coyotes, and reptiles over 8 feet long that are deadly or poisonous.  You can only own, buy, sell, or transfer these animals if they are registered in the county where the animal lives.

Meanwhile, nextdoor in Kansas, you can own any exotic animal that you got in a legal way.  You can't just go out and capture the animal, because that would be illegal.  You only need a permit if you are getting a mountain lion, bear, or wolf.  You have to keep your exotic animal in a place that it can't get out of.  If one predatory animal got loose, it could screw up the ecosystem.  And if two or more got loose, they could start having babies, turn into an invasive species, and that would make a really, really big mess.

Which brings me back to my first point, when I said that it's a very bad idea to own an exotic animal in the first place.  And I haven't even talked about the fact that your exotic pet might suddenly decide to kill you and eat you someday, because that's a whole 'nother can of worms.  So I will just end by saying that, in my opinion, anybody who wants to keep an exotic pet really needs to have his or her head examined!

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ANOTHER HUNTING PRINT

This is another picture of a hunting scene from one of the placemats Mom bought that I told you about before.  It was painted by the same artist as the last one, Sir Francis Grant.  The name of this picture is The Meeting of Her Majesty's Stag Hounds on Ascot Heath.  And then in fancy scripty letters under that, it says "To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield, Master of the Royal Hunt."

The Chesterfield coat of arms,
which is really cool because it has two dogs in it!

Ascot Heath is about 6 miles or so away from Windsor Castle, which is one of the places where the Royal Family likes to hang out.  Except that nowadays there isn't really a heath at Ascot anymore, because a whole big racetrack got built on top of it.  But I will tell you more about that later.

Windsor Castle

Anyway, in this hunting scene painting, you can see a whole bunch of men in red jackets, sitting on their horses, waiting for the hunt to start.  And at the right-hand side, there is a black carriage, which maybe has the queen inside it.  The queen we are talking about would be Queen Victoria, who was a big fan of dogs and horses, so she probably also liked stag-hunting.  If you want to know more about Queen Victoria and her dogs, you can look at my blog entry where I talked about that very subject.  Sir Francis Grant painted several pictures of Queen Victoria, so maybe she asked him to paint a picture of the hunt for her, too.

Queen Victoria, painted by Sir Francis Grant

The dogs in the hunt scene are not foxhounds.  They are staghounds, which are bigger than foxhounds.  Also they don't run quite as fast.  Nowadays, there aren't a lot of staghound packs in England because there aren't a lot of deer left to hunt.  Staghounds are about 24" tall at the shoulder.  They were probably bred from foxhounds that were too large to do well in foxhound packs.

A staghound named Ruby,
from the Royal Kennel

There are no particular standards for staghounds because they are never put in dog shows, like foxhounds are.  The qualities of a good staghound are muscular strength, sturdy bone structure, courage, and a good nose.  They have to be in good condition and know the countryside well, so that they can keep up with the stags.

Okay, now about Ascot Heath.  A long, long time ago, in 1711, a queen named Anne was out riding her horse on the heath, and suddenly she realized that it would make a good place for "horses to gallop at full stretch" because it was large and flat.  So she got busy organizing the first race ever to be held at Ascot.  It took place on Saturday, August 11, 1711.  The big prize was was Her Majesty's Plate, which included a purse of 100 guineas.  Any horse over the age of 6 could enter, and 7 horses did.  These horses were not thoroughbreds, which is what race horses are today.  Instead, they were hunters, like people rode when they went fox hunting.  The race was made up of 3 heats, and each of these was 4 miles long.  Which meant that the winning horse had to be able to run for long distances.  Sadly, no one remembers now who won this first race, or more importantly, how they spent the 100 guineas.

Queen Anne in 1705

In the picture that Sir Francis Grant painted of the Queen's Staghounds, we can see a track in the background, where a couple of horses are running.  I think this might be part of the original Ascot race track, but I could be wrong about that.  Anyway, nowadays there is a big, fancy track there, with stands for people to sit in.  The track is still connected with the Royal Family, since it is so close to Windsor Castle.

Horses passing the finishing post at Ascot

Every year, from May to October, there are 26 days of Flat racing at Ascot.  Then during the winter, there is jump racing, which includes hurdles or steeple chase.  In Europe, horse racing is usually done on turf or an all-weather synthetic surface.  This is different from the U.S., where racing is done on dirt or all-weather surfaces.

So that is all I can really say about this second hunting print on a placemat.  But I will just add this disclaimer to my blog entry, which is that when I talk about stag hunting and horse racing, I am just trying to help you learn some things, and it doesn't mean I approve of these activities or think you should go out and do them yourself!

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MORE KITTENS! YIKES!

Mom went to the shelter yesterday, and she thought she would bring home that little Siamese kitten, Dante.  But I am very sad to tell you that Dante died over the weekend.  He had been kind of sickly all along, and he wasn't eating very well, but we don't know what was wrong with him exactly, or why he died.

Anyway, in the meantime, a lady brought a mother cat and two kittens to the shelter, and Aunt Tania agreed to take them in her rescue group.  And then Aunt Tania talked Mom into fostering them, which wasn't too hard, because Mom is such a sucker!  So Mom brought these three kitties home, but none of us were allowed to see them because Mom wants them to have their own space for a little while.  Which means that Mom put them in the back room where lots of plants live in the wintertime, but now the plants are mostly all outside.  So, like I say, I haven't seen the new kitties with my own eyes, but I can smell them perfectly well, and I can also smell their food, which I think would be very yummy for me to eat.  But for those of you who cannot smell the new kitties, Mom took some photos which I am going to show you, and I will tell you everything I know about the kittens and their mama.

First of all, I will say that the mother cat is black, except that she has a little bit of white hair on her chest.  She is kind of a kitten herself, and this is probably her first litter of kittens.  Aunt Tania thinks that she is only about 8 months old.  Mom decided to give all 3 cats African names, and the name she gave the mama cat is Latifa.  This name means "gentle" or "kind" in the language it comes from, which is maybe Swahili, but I can't remember for sure.  You might also know that there is a singer and actor named Queen Latifah.  Mom and I really like her, and we hope she won't mind that there is a cat with the same name as she has.

Binty.  Or maybe it's Akeela.

The two kittens are both girls, and they are both gray tabbies, and they look very much alike.  Aunt Tania used a Sharpie marker and put a number 1 in the ear of one kitten and a number 2 in the ear of the other kitten.  This way, we can tell which one is which.  Mom studied them for a while, and she noticed that one of the kittens has stripes on her head that are closer together, so they look blacker than the stripes on the other kitten's head.  So that is another way to tell them apart.  Anyway, the kitten with the close-together stripes is going to be named Binty, which means "daughter."  And the other kitten will be named Akeela, which means "wise."

Akeela.  Or maybe it's Binty.

Oh, and we think the kittens are about 6 weeks old.  They are almost as big as Ivy and Ingram, so they will get to be spayed and neutered pretty soon, after which they can get adopted.  And Latifa can also be spayed, so she can be adopted, too.

Okay, now I will tell you some other important news.  Charlie had to go to see Dr. Vodraska yesterday afternoon because he keeps coughing.  Dr. Vodraska thinks Charlie mostly has allergies and sinus drainage, and that may be making his throat sore.  Charlie might have to get an x-ray sometime of his lungs, but Mom didn't have time yesterday to wait while Charlie got his x-ray, because she had to go to a meeting.  So for right now, Charlie is getting Clavamox, which is supposed to cure any infection that he has.

And here is one other news item for you.  We now have a carpeted kitchen.  Well, okay, it's not real carpeting.  It's just a whole bunch of rugs that don't even match each other.  But the reason we got this "carpet" is because last week Mom took Nicky to an expo thing where REGAP had a booth.  And when they got there, Nicky was shocked to see that the exhibition hall had a SLICK FLOOR which he was Very Afraid to walk on.  But Mom kind of coaxed and dragged Nicky until they got to the REGAP booth.

Here's Barry walking on the new kitchen carpet.
Mel is at the back door, waiting to come in.

They stayed at the booth for two hours, and Nicky let a lot of people pet him, and sometimes he lay down on a blanket there.  And one time when he was standing up, he was leaning on Mom, and then she moved a little bit, and Nicky almost fell down because his back legs started sliding out from under him.  But Mom and Aunt Robyn held him up so he didn't fall down.  And when it was time to leave, Nicky was Very Afraid to cross the floor and go down the stairs.  But finally he and Mom got home, after which, Nicky was afraid to even walk across our own kitchen floor.  So the next day Mom got out all her rugs and put them in the kitchen, and now Nicky is Very Happy to walk across the floor to the back door.

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THE TOTAL CUTENESS OF OUR FOSTER KITTENS

Yesterday our kittens, Ivy and Ingram, got fixed, even though they weren't broken.  And now they are ready to be adopted!  Mom has been taking pictures of them, and she also wrote a little bio for each kitten and sent it to the lady who puts the cats on Petfinder.  So soon people will see our kittens and they will instantly want to adopt them.  And if they don't get adopted by next Saturday, Mom will take them to PetSmart.

Anyway, Mom took lots more pictures than she could use for Petfinder, which is why she said I should put some of these pictures in my blog.  And as I have mentioned before, I like to do whatever makes Mom happy because I know which side my bread is buttered on, as they say.  Except that I think I would rather have cheese spread or peanut butter on my bread.

Okay, so here's the first picture of Ivy, and you can tell from this picture just how big she is, or at least you can tell if you know the size of Mom's hand.

And this one shows Ivy playing with Mom's shoelaces, so that's another way to see what size Ivy is, because Mom wears a size 7.5 shoe.  Also, I will tell you that when Ivy got spayed yesterday, she weighed 2 pounds, 1 ounce, which is just barely big enough to be spayed.

In this photo, Ivy is on the back of the sofa, with our lovely orange wall behind her.  Personally, I think Ivy looks good with an orange background.

This one shows Ivy sitting on top the crate where the kittens live most of the time.  Ivy likes to sit up there sometimes and watch TV, which is something that Jason used to do.

And in this picture, Ivy is trying to play with the camera strap while Mom is taking the photo.  Silly kitten!

Okay, so now I will show you some pictures of Ingram.  Here he is sitting on the floor, looking cute.

And in this picture, you can see his little stubby tail.  We are hoping that there are people out there wanting Manx kittens, since that's the main thing that makes Ingram different from all the other black kittens who are looking for homes.

Here is Ingram showing off his sharp claws, like some kind of tiny little panther.

I like this picture because Ingram looks totally surprised and sort of cross-eyed.  I'm not sure why he looked that way, but I think it's funny.

And this last one makes me think of Halloween, with a black cat and an orange wall.  Of course, it's a little early to think about Halloween, but if someone adopts Ingram now, they will be all ready for the holiday when it gets here!

We were supposed to get another foster kitten, but Aunt Tania couldn't bring him to Mom at the shelter yesterday, so she's going to bring him to Mom tomorrow.  Dante is a flame-point Siamese.  When I heard this, I thought maybe he would breathe out fire like a dragon, but Mom said he won't be doing that, and I should just wait and see what he looks like.  Well, I was relieved to learn that Dante is not a fire-breathing kitten, because that would be really scary!

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"Sir Richard Sutton and the Quorn Hounds"

A few weeks ago, Mom went to an estate sale, but that is nothing new because it seems like she's always going to estate sales.  Anyway, at this particular sale, there were a whole bunch of framed prints of English fox hunting scenes on the walls.  Mom thought about buying one, but she also thought about all the poor foxes that have been hunted down and killed by fox hounds, so she didn't buy one of the framed prints.  But what she did buy was four placemats that are the kind like you find in British pubs, that are made of heavy cardboard with cork or felt on the back.

The four placemats that Mom bought had fox-hunting scenes, but they were cheaper than the prints on the wall.  So this was kind of a compromise because Mom likes the artwork in these paintings, even if she doesn't like the idea of fox hunting.  As for me, I also like the artwork, and I actually like to think about hunting something down and killing it, since that's what dogs do.  But I would not want to hunt a fox because a fox would be almost as big as I am, and it might be dangerous to get in a fight with one.  So I would rather hunt something smaller, such as a bunny or a squirrel or a mouse.

Anyway, I have done some important in-depth research on these hunt scenes that are on the placemats that Mom bought, and now I am ready to tell you about the first one.  It is called Sir Richard Sutton and the Quorn Hounds, and it was painted by Sir Francis Grant.

Of course, the first question that we have to ask is, "What is a quorn hound?"  And the answer is easy:  a quorn hound is a dog that hunts quorns!  Hahahaha!  That was a joke!  But seriously, there was a pack of fox-hunting hounds that was first put together in 1696 by a man named Thomas Boothby (1677--1752).  This pack later got the name "Quorn hounds" because they were kenneled in the village of Quorn, in Leicestershire, from 1753 to 1904.  And the reason they were kenneled there was because the second master of the hunt, Hugo Meynell, lived at Quorndon Hall.  Mr. Boothby was hunt master for over 50 years, and Mr. Meynell then had the job for 47 years.

Leicestershire

The Quorn pack hunts in much of Leicestershire, and also a little bit of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.  The  Hunting Act 2004 made fox-hunting illegal in its traditional form, but the Quorn keeps on hunting four days a week during the fall and winter.  They say they are operating within the law, but I don't know any details, so I cannot say if they are or not.  Mondays and Fridays are the most popular days for the hunt, and on those days they go out in open country with about 100-150 followers on horseback, plus maybe twice that many more who follow on foot, in cars, and on bicycles.  There are also hunts on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Quorn High Street

But getting back to the painting that is on the placemat, we also have to ask "Who was Sir Richard Sutton?" And the answer is that he was the Quorn hunt master from 1847 to 1856.  Sir Richard became the 2nd Baronet at age 4, after his grandfather, Sir Richard Sutton, 1st Baronet, died.  The 2nd Baronet was a passionate hunter.  And it's possible that he was also passionate about his wife, because the Suttons had 7 sons and 4 daughters.

The artist of this painting was Francis Grant, who grew up in Perthshire, Scotland.  When his father died in 1818, Mr. Grant inherited a bunch of money.  At first he thought he would be a lawyer, but then he decided to be a painter instead.  He mostly taught himself to paint, but he also learned some things by studying the works of Velasquez and other famous painters.

Sir Francis Grant

After a while, Mr. Grant got to be well known as a painter of "sporting" subjects.  In 1834 his work was in a show at the Royal Academy.  He was elected an associate of the Academy, and later on, in 1866, he was elected the president.  Not long after that, he was knighted.

Okay, so now we need to look at the painting itself and see what we can learn from it.  And here's what I think we can learn:

1.  If you are going fox hunting, you should wear a red jacket and white pants.  If you do not have a red jacket, you are definitely Out of Style.

2.  You will need some bleach or a good stain remover to clean your white pants after the hunt, because white is a very stupid and impractical color to wear for such an activity, since it will show all the mud that the horses kick up.

3.  You should wear a top hat or else one of those riding hats with the little button thingy on top, and it should be black.  If you do not wear a hat, you will be really, really, really Out of Style.

4.  Your horse should be brown, black, or grayish-white because those are the only colors hunters come in.  And you have to ride a hunter because that is the kind of horse that jumps over logs and fences and hedges and other such stuff that you will have to jump over while following the hounds.

5.  You need lots of fox hounds, and they should be happy and healthy and know what a fox smells like and how to track one.

Well, that's all I can think of to say about this painting.  Someday soon I will tell you about the other three.

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FIVE WORDS AND A PHRASE

MOIL

Moil means pretty much the same as toil, which is nice because these words rhyme.  Except that moil isn't used very often nowadays, and it can mean some other things that toil doesn't mean.  So anyway, the first meaning of moil is hard work or drudgery.  And it can also be a whirling, churning, or eddying.  An archaic meaning of moil is to wet or smear.

You can also use moil to mean confusion, turmoil, or trouble.  In glassmaking, a moil is a little extra piece of glass that shows up while the glass is being blown.  When the glass is being finished, the moil is taken off.

Miners use moils to break or pry out rock.  In this case, a moil is a short hand tool with a polygonal point.

The word moil started being used in Middle English between 1350 and 1400.  Back then, the word was moillen, and it meant to work hard in wet, muddy conditions.  The ME word came from the Latin word mollis, which means soft.




CHILBLAINS

I thought chilblains was an old-fashioned word for some kind of disease that is now called something else, but I was wrong.  It turns out you can still get chilblains even today.  And the only other words for the condition are pernio and perniosis.  What chilblains are is red, itchy ulcers that show up on places such as your hands or feet or ears after you have been out in the cold.

The way you get chilblains is when you are someplace really cold, and the tiny little blood vessels in your skin shrink and get damaged.  Then when they warm up again -- and especially if they warm up really fast -- they expand and break and leak blood.  This makes you end up with red patches that itch and burn and get swollen.

Most people don't get chilblains, but there are a few people who do get them because they have a family history of chilblains, or they have poor circulation, or maybe they have a condition such as lupus.  Also, young children and the elderly are more likely to get chilblains than other people are.  And women get them more often than men do.

You can treat chilblains by putting some topical stuff on them, and usually they will heal up in a couple of weeks.  But if you don't treat them, you might end up with skin ulcers, cracked skin, or infections.




DOUGHTY

Mom and I thought that this word meant somebody who was all frumpy and wore clothes that were out of style.  But we were shocked to find out that doughty actually describes a person who is brave, fearless, hardy, bold, intrepid, and resolute.  Doughty comes from the Old English word dohtig, which is related to the Old High German toht, meaning worth, and the Middle Dutch word duchtich for strong.  And all of these words go back to tukhe, the Greek word for luck.

Anyway, Mom and I were wondering how we could have possibly have been so wrong about this word, and then Mom finally remembered that the word we were thinking of was:

DOWDY

So when we looked this word up, sure enough, it was all about somebody who wears clothes that are shabby or lacking in stylishness.  A dowdy person can also be old-fashioned or drab.   This word comes from the Middle English word doude, which means immoral, unattractive, or shabbily dressed.











CRWTH

This is one of those crazy Welsh words where nobody remembered to put in a vowel!  Except that I guess the "w" is supposed to be a vowel.  Anyway, it's pronounced krüth.  Or you can just use the English word crowd instead.

A crwth is a musical instrument with 6 strings made of gut.  The main part of it is sort of like a box, and the fingerboard doesn't have any frets.  You play the crwth by using a bow, sort of like you would play a violin.

There are pictures from the 11th century that show instruments that look somewhat like crwths, so we know that it this instrument has been around a long time.  A person who plays the crwth is called a crythor in Welsh.  Crwth comes from the Proto-Celtic noun krotto, which means a round object.  The bulging shape of the instrument is probably why people called it "round."

In English, as I mentioned before, the instrument is called a crowd.  So a player of the crowd was called a Crowder or Crowther, and that is where those surnames came from.  In Scotland, a crowd player was called MacWhirter or MacWhorter.




PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

I always thought this was a goofy phrase because as a dog, I think envelopes should be eaten and not pushed.  Mom didn't understand why anybody would talk about pushing an envelope around either, so I did some research on the phrase.  And what I learned was that pushing the envelope wasn't about paper envelopes at all.  It's really about flying airplanes!

Anyway, the envelope for a plane is made up of stuff like how high and fast it can fly and still be safe.  So if you dive the plane at a really high speed, you are flying "outside the envelope," and it's pretty dangerous because you might end up doing the crash-and-burn thing.

Nowadays, people are talking about pushing the envelope in lots of other fields such as business, advertising, TV, and movies.  For example, if a TV show has a lot of violence or sex, it may be pushing the envelope to see how much it can get away with before the censors crack down and the advertisers back out.

And right now, when I am writing this late at night, I am pushing the envelope to see if I can stay awake until I finish writing!

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MIKE: A CIVIL WAR DOG

We don't know what breed Mike was, but there is one picture of him, and we can see that he was a fairly small dog, and he was either black or brown.  Mike belonged to a Vermont blacksmith named Patrick Colligan, who was born in Ireland in about 1840.  There are lots of other ways to spell Colligan, and here are some of them:  Calaghan, Callighan,  Calighan, Callogdhen, Callaghan, Callaghen, Colloghden, Calleghen, Colloghen.  Which just goes to show you that the Irish can be kind of crazy sometimes.  But the descendants of Patrick Colligan decided to spell the name "Colligan," and that's the way I'm spelling it, too.

Anyway, Mr. Colligan came to the U.S. when he was a teenager.  He lived with a blacksmith and his family in Rutland, VT, and that's how he learned to be a blacksmith himself.  In 1861, Mr. Colligan joined the Vermont Infantry for three months.  After his three months were up, he re-enlisted in the First Regiment of Vermont Cavalry.  He held the rank of blacksmith, and he kept that rank through the rest of his military service.

The Army Forge, by Edwin Forbes

Mr. Colligan's dog, Mike, liked to think of himself as a scout, and he used to go out ahead of the cavalry to look for the enemy.  He seemed to actually like the noise of the cannons and muskets firing.  One time, Mike was sitting on the seat of an ammunition wagon when Confederate soldiers shot the horses that were hitched to the wagon.  One of Mike's front legs was shattered, but he survived the wound.  Another time, at the battle of Kelly's Ford, he lost the tip of his tail.  But besides that, Mike got through the war in good shape and was welcomed as a hero when he came home.

The one picture we have of Mike was made by an artist named Edwin Forbes, who worked for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.  Mr. Forbes followed the Army of the Potomac around, making sketches of anything that he thought would be interesting for the paper's readers to see.  One day he made a sketch of a cavalry blacksmith shop, and he saw a bossy little dog there, which of course was Mike.  So Mr. Forbes put Mike right in the middle of his picture, and this just goes to show exactly how important Mike was to the whole operation.

Edwin Forbes ended up being one of the most important artists of the American Civil War.  He was very good at painting, etching, and illustrating.  Before the war, he made a lot of pictures of animal life, but during the war, he drew pictures of many important battles and other wartime events.

The Sanctuary, by Edwin Forbes

Here is an etching by Mr. Forbes that shows a family of African-Americans when they first see the Union troops coming, and they know they are safe.  I like this picture a lot because it also has a dog in it, which in my opinion, makes any piece of artwork better.

But getting back to Mike the dog and his human, Patrick Colligan, I am sorry to say that I don't have any information about what happened to Mike after he came home from the war.  Mr. Colligan decided to move out West, and I like to think that he took Mike along to Rolla, Missouri, which is where he settled.  In that town, he met and married Mary Ann Saltsman on September 10, 1869.

After about a year of marriage, the Colligans moved back to Vermont.  They raised a family of seven children in West Rutland.  Mr. Colligan kept on being a blacksmith until 1908, when the asthma and malaria he suffered from during the war made it too hard for him to work.  He died on January 31, 1917.  Mrs. Colligan died a few years later, in 1924.

The Colligans are both buried in West Rutland, in unmarked graves, in St. Bridget's Cemetery.  We don't know where Mike was buried, but it was probably also in an unmarked grave somewhere in West Rutland.

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