Last Night I Was Watering The Plants And Then I Accidently Fell Asleep And I Forgot To Turn Off The

I accidentally left a big pot of turkey meatballs and red sauce out overnight. Is it safe to eat?

First my credentials - I am a National Restaurant Association Serve Safe (R) certified instructor, and am a FSMA and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) and Quality Control consultant on an international level.Now let's analyze the risk: Not all foods are potentially hazardous. We leave butter, oil, fruit, vegetables, dry foods, canned foods, cooked bacon, etc at room temperature. There are milks that are shelf stable, hams that don't need to be refrigerated, all because either the pH/water activity isn't suitable for bacterial growth. So the fact of being at room temperature isn't sufficient to determine the risk.Turkey is poultry and is a pre-cooked item so is potentially hazardous due to salmonella (poultry) and Listeria (cooked Meats). Presuming the meatballs were heated last night to at least 165 degrees for at least 5 seconds at or above that temperature, the bacteria that would have existed on the meatballs or sauce would have been killed. That is IF it reached that temperature to the center of the meatball (salmonella is ON THE SURFACE of raw turkey, but becomes mixed to the core when ground).If you are unsure if it reached that temp, the risk is that there could be contamination, and, at between 43 degrees and 140 degrees F, bacteria grows (temperature danger zone). The longer it is in that zone, the greater the growth. If you killed 98% of the bacteria last night, and it sat out for 8 hours in the danger zone, then that 2% would definitely grow.If you bought the meatballs pre-cooked from the grocer, then it is a good presumption that they killed all bacteria in the plant before freezing. Unless anyone in your house handled the meatballs without washing hands, introducing cross-contamination, there is very little risk that the meatballs are unsafe to eat.But, unless they're so amazing and you can't bear the thought of tossing them, I'd dump them. But if you choose not to, the chances are very slim they'll make you sick.

Should I release my hamster to nature? My hamster is trying to "break jail" every night. I wonder if it is eager to be free. Will it be happier living in the wild?

If by "the wild" you mean inside your home, then by all means go ahead.He will love living under your fridge. Ours did, when he escaped. Make sure and leave out some food and water and he'll be happy as a clam. Oh, but he'll need a mate. The two of them will be happy under your fridge or they may decide to move into larger quarters behind the dishwasher when the kids arrive. They'll die eventually, probably from chewing on power cords or falling into the toilet. I don't know how ours did it, but he somehow found a way. (We found him before it was Too Late.) Some of their offspring should survive though, and continue to entertain you by climbing into your sock drawer and chewing up your socks to make a nest.In the outdoors, they will soon get cold and wet, and they won't know how to find food or evade predators, so that is not safe for them. They won't be happy at all.I think what your hamster really wants is some exercise. First, he needs a running wheel in his cage. This is an absolute necessity. Hamsters love to run and explore, that's why they love escaping. In measured wheels, they have been recorded traveling as far as four miles in one night! That doesn't mean they want to be fed to the neighborhood cats and owls in the great outdoors.We let ours out for a run every night, indoors of course. We taught them to come when we called. (They were all very tame to handle, so they were not scared of us.) I call a hamster by scratching and making scuttling sounds with my fingers on the floor. They are so curious about that noise that they always come to see if it might be another hamster. Then I just scoop them up. Sometimes they would fall asleep in certain favourite places, like my shoe cupboard. We got to know where to look for them. Don't ever feed them outside their cage (except as bait). If they can't find any food during their outings they are usually happy to find a treat back in their cage when they return.For the more skittish ones, another way to catch them is to put a small dark box on the floor. We used a tea cannister. Dark holes are irresistible to hamsters, they just can't help themselves, but must go in and take a look. Worked every time. We had full-sized hamsters, not the mini Russian ones. The mini ones are much harder to tame and catch, but I think the same techniques might work.

My neighbors were neglecting their cat and so I started taking care of him, eventually he started sleeping in my house at night. Now they're angry and want him back. What can I do? My heart is broken.

This is Billy.Billy lived across the street from me. One day I noticed him on my porch. Then in my backyard. At first I didn't know who he belonged to so I fed himEventually he moved into the backyardThen closerI began spoiling him like my older one. I started leaving the door open for him to come inside, he seemed to want to be my cat. This went on for a while. Even when my very senior cat chased him outHe still came back like he had a purpose. Months passed and I lost my senior to old age. He was the best cat I ever had so I had no intention of replacing him. I was done with cats for a while I was going to travel. I wasn't going to have any ties, things were going to be super simple well BILLY had other plans or shall I say God because he sent BILLY to me he saved both of us. In the middle of this I did talk to my neighbors across the street which explained that they had gotten another cat who after a weekend left alone with BILLY the relationship of the two changed and BILLY no longer wanted to live there. He started coming across the street. They bought me some cat food and said thank you very much for taking care of him. They sold their house and moved away.Billy loves me and I him. I was prepared to lock him in my house if they wanted to try and take him. It was obvious that he had decided where and who he choose to be "his master" I'm lucky these people just wanted to make sure I really wanted him and would love him. I moved as well after that. I told him he's going to have to be a traveling cat for a while. He agreed!Santa CruzSomewhere by the EvergladesFlorida by the gulfSleeping in the Tennessee sunPlease don't wake me up, dang it's bright here in ArizonaAre we here yet? Is this it?So here we are in our new home.Boy I can't take you anywhereLooks like rainI missed my treeOne of my favorite window spots!