My children found cute, fuzzy little mice in our window wells and begged me to let them keep the mice as pets. I should insert here that I love all of Gene Stratton-Porter's novels and I delight in her descriptions of plants, animals and insects and somehow fancy myself a lover of nature BUT...I draw the line at mice. BUT because I am a fun homeschool mom I graciously promised my children that if they researched mice and found out about their natural habitat and what they liked to eat, etc. and wrote me a page about it, I would allow them to care for the mice properly. (Are you cringing yet?)
It just so happened the very next day the pest control company came to service our home. I also just so happened to mention our little problem with the mice and the technician assured me that he would take care of it. Feeling rather relieved I shut the door and was faced with three crushed children. They were crying and appealing to their father for mercy (and making plans to thwart the pest control guy's work). I remembered my empty promise and was suddenly filled with a sick feeling.
My oldest came to me and scolded me, "If you are always talking about catching your children's sparks of interest and building them into bonfires, why do you squelch every flame of interest we have!" Talk about calling me on the carpet! I really felt bad...for about 5 minutes...
Chances are those "mice" are actually voles. Our neighborhood is SWARMING with them!!!! The stats at our house currently stand at: 3 live voles caught in our window wells & 3 dead voles caught in our window wells.
ReplyDeleteThis post is so funny to me because a very similar thing happened here at our house! A few weeks back the kids caught one vole in the window well (with a bowl) and wanted to keep it. I was grossed out! They lovingly took it to a field and let it loose. Yesterday we found two more live ones. And I don't know what possessed me, but I actually got those voles out and put them in our terrarium where our tortoise is living. Those are the two happiest voles on the face of this earth! They've been running around, eating a bunch, and snuggling with each other. I spent the next few hours with full body shivers and feeling a total loss of appetite with a thoughts of dry heaving in my mouth... By the way, the kids are THRILLED!