After hitting send on my morning blog post I hopped in the car and rushed to town for a meeting on the diocesan budget, slipping out of the Bishop's conference room and rushing off to Main Street for my mandolin lesson, followed by a follow-up exam for my new contacts at the mall and the return of a pair of shoes purchased last week. Back in my own town, I stopped at the printer's to collect 4000 campaign flyers for insertion in a weekly newspaper and pay the bill.
My musical accompaniment for this journey was Warren Zevon. I always like listening to Warren at this time of year, especially the 2-disc set of his best known songs--loaded with 40-something tunes.
Singing loud (all about the exploits of Frank and Jesse James), I drove the flyers to the newspaper office. On my way I spotted a residence with lots of political yard signs--for US Rep, US Senator, Governor, President--all in my party. Hmmm, thinks I, maybe they'd display my sign, too, if I asked. (I had several in the back of the car.)
So, on the way back I pulled in the driveway and went to the door with one of my flyers in hand. There was no answer. The two cats--absolutely gorgeous cats--looked at me in a friendly way. One was busy with something in the grass. I left a sign on the porch anyway, with an explanatory note and my phone number. I was leaning the sign against the door when I heard a high-pitched squeak.
The cat was pawing at the thing in the grass, and each time it squeaked.
The sound roused my concern that it might be a bat...I went over to investigate. There was a tiny ball of squeaking fur in the grass. I scooped it up with a folded flyer.
I could tell it was a rodent. Not a mouse. Not a rat. Something with a little short tail. It was very much alive and apparently unharmed.
I wasn't about to leave it there for the cat to dispatch. So I carried it to my car and placed it in the box top that came with the extra flyers.
As I headed out of the driveway, Warren started singing "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner."
For that reason, I christened my tiny passenger Roland the Rodent.
Soon as I got home, I transferred Roland to another container the better to examine him. I left him alone under a warm light and retrieved the ubiquitous aquarium from the loft.
It has housed 2 baby chipmunks (successfully rehabilitated and returned to the wild) and 2 baby turtles (which we kept for a couple of months and released in the little lake.)
I dug up some grass tufts and created a habitat. I re-hydrated Roland, then introduced him to his new lodging.
Then I settled down with the nature books to do some identification.
He's a microtine rodent, either a baby meadow vole or woodland vole. I'm doing additional research online. He's nowhere near full-sized. I didn't think his eyes were quite opened, but was mistaken judging by this photo. If you follow the curve of the blade of grass, there's his little eye looking back.
While I was typing this my telephone rang...it was the homeowner. Not only is he willing to post my sign, he volunteered to help me campaign at the polls on Election Day!
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