We both slept in today, then worked on our little projects here around the house. Weeding's a bit difficult when it hasn't rained for a while. So last week I investigated some other things, and discovered that a pretty little storage shed Livey and her dad built was crammed to the rafters with aluminum cans.
Clearing out the shed could really help her out. She's paying $50/month for a storage place. She needed it for awhile to hold all the stuff she acquires from her patients when they want to clear out their homes and move into an assisted living facility. But she's sold off enough to close the space down, and that's what the goal is.
Now, this next part may take some of you back to your college years.
I realized there's a fortune in cans in that shed.
I asked Livey if she'd mind if I sorted through them and figured out the best way to salvage the various kinds.
Get this: She not only said, *Whatever your little heart desires* - oh, I LOVE to hear her say that! - she offered to split the proceeds with me.
Now that got me really motivated!
Well. I had an exploratory trip yesterday, trying to figure out all the rules for this stuff, and came back home almost $50 the richer, and got rid of hardly any cans yet. heh! I really did have to go there to learn all the Rules, which get complicated, and vary with each drop off site. I'd tried just calling them on the phone, but that didn't do much good.
I came back to re-sort everything properly, and I'll head back out in a day or two.
Yeah. I'm slow. Verrrryyy slow...
So I'm sitting out in the driveway, contentedly sorting away, while Livey was cleaning out and organizing her garage space, getting ready to bring home the things in the storage unit.
Suddenly, she screamed.
I got up and ran over - well, hobbled, you know - camera in hand.
She'd picked up a box to go through it, opened it up, and saw a mouse. Screamed and tipped the box over on its side. The mouse was acting strange: it didn't run away.
Why?
Because the poor thing was in the process of giving birth to a tiny baby mouse.
She finally ran away, child halfway born.
Now, you know I love critters of almost all descriptions. Livey is NOT partial to mice. But she is a mother. And it broke our hearts to realize what had happened.
Oh, no.
There was nothing to save our Livey from, or to see, or take any pix of. Livey started to pick up the things that fell out of the box when she tipped it over.
And suddenly noticed there was a wee little baby mouse among them.
Oh, no. Poor little thing!
We got a small cardboard box and put the little baby in it. It was squeaking amazingly loudly, calling for its mother. Brand new newborn baby.
We put the cardboard box by the lawnmower, where mama had run off.
But...a few minutes later we heard more loud squeaks. From another direction.
Where we discovered there were two more babies, next to the wonderfully soft nesting material mama had made for her little ones.
Oh, no.
Livey brought me the lid we'd propped over the cardboard box by the lawnmower. I put the nesting material in it, and the two babies, and we took it back to the lawnmower area and looked in the part of the box that had held the first baby.
That first little baby mouse was GONE.
Mama had already heard, and rescued, her first lost baby, in that short amount of time.
That helped.
We haven't been back out to check the box for the other two babies. There are all sorts of critters out here that eat mice, including Livey's dog. Nature eats nature. We both know it. I think that, for now, we just don't want to know what may have happened to the other two.
Nope.
I'm going to go to bed hoping Mama is fine, and all four - or more - of her little ones are safe and warm and nursing now.
Yeah. I know.
Only a mouse.
In some ways I'm a softie, okay? I just am.
Where we discovered there were two more babies, next to the wonderfully soft nesting material mama had made for her little ones.
Oh, no.
Livey brought me the lid we'd propped over the cardboard box by the lawnmower. I put the nesting material in it, and the two babies, and we took it back to the lawnmower area and looked in the part of the box that had held the first baby.
That first little baby mouse was GONE.
Mama had already heard, and rescued, her first lost baby, in that short amount of time.
That helped.
We haven't been back out to check the box for the other two babies. There are all sorts of critters out here that eat mice, including Livey's dog. Nature eats nature. We both know it. I think that, for now, we just don't want to know what may have happened to the other two.
Nope.
I'm going to go to bed hoping Mama is fine, and all four - or more - of her little ones are safe and warm and nursing now.
Yeah. I know.
Only a mouse.
In some ways I'm a softie, okay? I just am.
6 comments:
See? That's what I would do... as long as they weren't IN the house. If they were, then I'd just move 'em outside the house. You're a good person.
You did the only right thing, k.
Yes, you did!
Nooooo!!!!!!!!!
Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!
Never suffer a mouse or rat of any kind or size to live. Do you have any idea of the reproductive rate. You just created over 500 more before the summer is over.
Girlls.
Ain't it great? Like a cat food bowl that never gets empty!
But their pee stinks, and they chew everything.
Still I couldn't have done other than what you did in that case.
Right, Sue! Mice aren't allowed in the house. Same with lots of other critters.
So, you put them back out where they belong. Makes perfect sense to me. Thank you, ladies!
kdzu, see new post above. ;-)
DC, I know. It may seem odd to some others that we're kind of rooting for both sides at once here. But to harm a mother who's birthing a baby? It's just not right.
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