Jerry the Mouse

Apparently my summer blew up when the children ended their school year.  To be fair, June is always busy leading up to the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, but this year, I spent the month of July preparing to go away on what we fondly call a non-hospital vacation during the first half of August.

Three weeks ago while at a horse barn, I heard a strange noise coming from the hay stack.  What I thought was a bird, turned out to be two orphaned baby field mice, crawling about looking for their mother.  As the barn cat sat about 2 feet from where this scene was playing out, I think we can all guess what happened to Mama Mouse.  I scooped them up and brought them home - Tom was slightly larger and his eyes were already open a little.  Jerry's eyes were closed but both babies had some fur.  I watered down some puppy formula from a previous (failed) mouse raising experiment - those we found in the carburetor of the riding lawn mower, an indication that we had not been diligent about mowing the lawn.  In any case, as always, the children asked me if the babies were going to survive and I answered "I don't know" while thinking "heck no."

Here is a photo of Jerry in my daughter Maya's hand, the day after he came home to live with us.

After 24 hours, both Tom and Jerry were doing well, drinking puppy formula from a tiny eye dropper.  However after 48 hours, something was clearly wrong with Tom, and he died on day #3.  Fast forward 3 weeks later and Jerry has surprised us all.......we are now the proud parents of a slightly tame field mouse who likes to eat scraps from the dinner table and comes out of his nest when you call his name.  Meet Jerry the Mouse.