Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for slightly over a week, there has been two plates of meat sitting in a cage in my back yard.

I was awoken this morning by the sound of a truck, beeping. In my half-awake state, I assumed it was there to take away the StinkyCage. Not surprisingly, it was a false alarm!

At this point in the experiment, I feel that the pictures speak for themselves.

While taking the daily photos at midnight, I thought that something was moving around the cage. I was a little freaked out. It turned out to be this cute fellow, on top of the cage, making leaves rustle.

I discovered today that my camera has a "macro" setting. I wonder if anyone else, upon discovering this setting, has immediately thought "Great, now I can take even better photos of maggots and rotting meat!"

The strange, white, viscous liquid has returned on Meatropolis's plate. It only seems to be there at night. I have no idea what it is.

Maggot Town is almost completely dead. Almost no interest from insects any more. A few stray earwigs on the Kangaroo Steak, and one or two maggots left in the Bolognaise Sauce, but that seems to be it. Such a contrast to just two days ago.

I lifted the Pork Steak in search of maggots, but came up empty-handed. I also attempted to lift the other pork steak, but it seemed to be quite securely attached to the plate. I'll give it another go tomorrow, but I don't hold out much hope of finding anything. The maggots have almost entirely abandoned Maggot Town. I...I miss them.

While administering the Daily Poking Test, I was amazed to discover that the maggots had almost completely hollowed out the SPAM. They're industrious little buggers.

General stats:

Weather – “Still no rain,” Cannibal Kate, our resident weather-person didn’t say today, because I forgot to ask her,  “and not a particularly hot or cold day.” How informative and specific and not just made up by me then!

Stench – 2/10 – the stench has considerably diminished. I’m beginning to suspect that the stench’s peak will be yesterday, when it reached a dazzling height of “3.5/10″.
Stench radius – 20cm – half of what it was yesterday, I didn’t notice any until I was opening the door to take some photos from within the cage.

Feeling of unease – 4/10 – I’m feeling a lot better today. I still haven’t been eating much, but that’s mostly due to busyness rather than disgust. I did have a dream about the meat last night, but it wasn’t particularly disgusting, and there were no maggots. I will admit that the lizard made me jump backwards when he first rustled a leaf. I could not work out what it was.

If I hadn’t been able to take the above photo, and prove to myself that it was a lizard moving around (and not the meat come to life) this score would be considerably higher. I don’t feel like I can smell maggots unless I’m actually looking at the photos, but I am still jumping every time something lightly brushes against me.

"Toughness" prevails!

The “Extras”:

Den Tartar hasn’t attracted any more flies, and the Gravy Jug, disappointingly, hasn’t produced any maggots. The plate with the mesclun salad, however, is producing into a gluey kind of liquid each night which turns back into ordinary water during the day.

I have no idea what is causing this – the logical answers would be either “heat” or “sunlight”, but neither of those seem to make much sense. Any scientists out there who can tell me what this strange night-time liquid is?

Kangaroo Steak:

Toughness – 10/10 – with the last of the maggots that were living in Kanga having died off, I feel confident in giving this meat a full 10/10 for toughness. It is brittle like a rock. You probably make a helmet out of this. It ain’t gettin’ any tougher.
Popularity – 2/10 – there were a few earwigs sniffing around when I went down to take the daily photos, but all maggots have now died off, and there doesn’t seem to be any interest from flies or ants.
Appeal – 6/10 – it’s bug-free…I think you could wash this off, (thoroughly wash it) heat it up and chow into it without any ill-effects. If I was starving to death, I’d seriously consider it. It’s the most appealing meat in Maggot Town at this point.

Pork Steak:

Toughness – 10/10
Popularity – 0/10 – as you can see, not a single bug is interested in the Pork Steak. Not one. Tomorrow I’ll try to pry up one of the other two, to see if there are maggots in them (someone suggested to me that me lifting the meats to have a look is what killed the maggots, but I don’t think that’s likely. There were a lot of maggots, and they had based their life-style off a non-sustainable source. It sounds like I’m trying to make a environmental metaphor here, but I’m really not*.) because the fact that they’re so firmly sealed to the plate suggests that perhaps they’re still moist, and full of maggots.
Appeal – 4/10 – again, as you can see from the photo above, it looks really gross. Unlike the Kangaroo Steak, the maggots really went to town here. They ate almost all there was that could be eaten.

*just remember though…the maggots all died when their fuel source ran out. We could all learn a valuable lesson from the StinkyPete project**!

**Don’t be a maggot.

Dad’s Bolognaise Sauce:

Toughness – 4/10 - this is a really tricky rating to give, because there’s really not much left of the bolognaise sauce to judge. The maggots ate about 60-80%, and what’s left is in two roughly equal portions – “crust”, which is solid enough that I can actually lift it with the Poking Stick, but isn’t thick enough to properly poke, and “what the maggots didn’t want”, which is so thinly spread that it can’t really be properly poked either! So unless something changes, I’ll leave the Bolognaise Sauce at its last rating, 4/10.
Popularity – 3/10 – I think there are still one or two maggots crawling around the little sauce that is left, and the earwigs seem to be interested as well.
Appeal – 1.5/10

Wall of Saveloy:

Toughness – 10/10
Popularity – 0/10
Appeal – 8/10 – up from yesterday, mostly because I feel a bit less ill typing tonight’s update.  Yesterday’s maggot photos really put me off, for some reason.

Can o’ SPAM:

Toughness – 2/10 – I’m not sure how to rank it. I mean, I can’t poke a hole in it, but that’s like saying you can’t poke a hole in a balloon with a boxing glove. It’s not that the balloon is particularly tough, it just…doesn’t work.

The SPAM, too, has split into two distinct parts, making it harder to rate. There’s the outer “crust”, which is protecting the maggots from the sun, and the “meat” of the SPAM, which they’re heartily devouring.

A little too heartily. At this rate, there will be no meat left for them tomorrow, and they’ll go the way of the Maggot Town maggots.

I’ll go with 2/10, because it’s springy, but not really “tough”.
Popularity – 8.5/10 – insanely popular. Not as popular as the Pork Steak was at the height of Porkmania ‘09, but there are still a lot of maggots inside the SPAM.
Appeal – 0.5/10

I’ll leave you with a closeup of the Gravy Peninsulas that I took today, because it’s looking pretty funky:

There could be maggots swimming around in that "ocean", but it's not looking likely. Maybe I should relocate some from the SPAM?

Tomorrow: Questions for an entomologist, daily check-in