No, not a house mouse but a little field mouse. Theo brought it in last night for a suppertime snack but rather grumpily dropped it when I told him to. I don't like them eating their rodents in the house very much (stains the carpet), especially when I'm still up to hear the screams. I usually either flush the corpses down the loo or, if the mouse or whatever still has all its limbs and looks lively I take it over the road to the park and let it go. Ocassionally I have to kill a half-dead rodent to prevent further suffering. They don't do well minus a leg.
This one however looked intact, but very, very wet and was shivering like crazy, presumably from fear and cold. It was cold out last night however and I thought if I put such a drookit little creature outside it would die very quickly. So Mr/Ms Squeak became the first mouse to get offered emergency residential accomodation...an old storage jar with a muslin cloth stretched over the top. And a teaspoonful of muesli for dinner.
Poor little sod just sat for the first twenty minutes amd shivered, until it dawned on thicko here s/he needed a bit more than a cold glass jar to warm up. So mousie got presented with a luxurious bed of drum carder cleanings (silk/merino, no less!) and the jar went through into the cupboard where I keep the freezer, where it gets warm enough to proove the bread.
This morning? Bright as a button. I have the jar on my desk now and Squeak is looking nice and fluffy after a lengthy preening session. S/he is sitting eating a raisin.
"Time to go home, Squeak? Back to the park? Keep away from the big bad cat from now on...next time, you might not be so lucky."
(Yea, I'm a softie. Especially when it comes to wee furry things.)
PS. Thanks for all the Competition entries! I think this must be my record for comments so far. Still time to enter though, up until midnight GMT on Saturday. Winners will be judged by my six year old princess and myself. There'a been some wonderful stories and some equally great short but beautiful suggestions, so keep them coming. And I've blended up a beautiful batt of spinning fibre for the winner, with an alternative prize for these of you that don't spin. (Yet.) Pix tomorrow.
4 comments:
Oh you are brave, mice terrify me, so I am one of these people who has been known to jump on a chair when the cat brought me presents.
Such a sweet little mouse.
Perhaps it will never want to leave. Silk and merino? Such luxury!
Don't you love those bright little shoe-button eyes? I agree with Sherry--the next time kitty goes a-hunting, it may find a wee beastie with his/her bags all packed. "Home, James! And try not to drool all over my luggage."
What a lucky mouse!
Post a Comment