November 4th, 2013 Monday 9:30 p.m.
I am astonished that it is November already! The time has flown by! The Autumn leaves are beautiful right now, but I am sad for I know that they will soon be bare once more. How could such beauty vanish before our very eyes?
We are in the process of building bookshelves! On Saturday we designed them and bought the supplies and Sunday we began work on them. We got them all cut and partially painted and stained before it was too dark to see, (we are working outside) and so today we picked up where we had left off. They are now completely painted and stained, except for touch ups, and two of the shelves are assembled, all but the front trimmings. We made them to fit the dining room wall; one on each side of the window and one underneath. I painted them light blue using a distressed painting technique. I hope they turn out well! It is always nerve wracking to do something out of the ordinary, because you never know just how it will turn out.
On Thursday of last week, while Trey was working in the backyard, he destroyed the home of a mouse and her 5 babies. Seeing the mother scurry around in the chilly rain to protect her babies made Trey feel so sorry for them that he brought them inside to me.
We decided to keep them in a cage for the day, to enjoy observing them and then let them out when better weather came. Less than 36 hours later the mother chewed her way out of the cage, abandoning her babies! She had plenty of food and water and a warm, dry place to sleep, but I guess she wanted to be free so badly that she would leave her helpless babies behind. We were baffled and hoped that she would come back for her babies, but we've not seen her since. Great, now we're stuck with 5 hungry, baby mice that need us desperately! If we don't feed them they will die. After at least 3 attempts at raising abandoned baby mice I wasn't looking forward to the intense care of 5 of them! We could not just let them die so we've been feeding them milk through a dropper with a paintbrush tip attached to the end. It sounds strange, but it works. They are now able to eat little bits of shredded mozzarella. They appear to be about 12 or 13 days old. They all have their eyes open but one and they crawl around like crazy! They are darling, lovable creatures and enjoy curling up in the palm of my hand and napping. Thankfully they are old enough to keep themselves clean and they seem to be doing well considering their circumstances, but you never now. The success rate for mice is only 25%, so they may not make it, but I'm thankful for this amazing opportunity to observe and enjoy God's wonderful creation!
~Clair
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