No one has ever accused me of being the sentimental type. When people forward inspirational messages or YouTube videos of dogs saving other animals or cute babies I usually have to resist an urge to email back and ask them to stop sending all the feel-good crap. But, once in a rare while I read something that resonates (in fact, I have two items clipped and saved in 35 years!). Here’s one:

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An old Cherokee woman is teaching her granddaughter about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” she said to the girl. “It’s a terrible fight and it’s between two wolves. One is evil – she is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lied, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good – she is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you – inside every other person, too.”

The granddaughter thought about it for a minute and then asked her grandmother, “Which wolf will win?”

The grandmother simply replied, “The one you feed.”

-Author unknown

I work out almost every day. I wish I was one of those people who can effortlessly exercise and look like a Nike model. My face turns red, my body sweaty and stinky. Anyhow, I was sitting in the living room after a run, cooling down. My dogs, Missy and Jasmine, were sleeping at my feet. Scott (husband) came into the room, looked at me, and wrinkled his nose (he usually points out how bad I smell). He then immediately, calmly, followed with this sentence: “You need to get up there’s a shrew on Missy.”

I just sat staring at him, trying to figure out the joke. How did my BO become a shrew? Why was my shrew-BO on Missy? Is he on drugs? Then I think, maybe he is actually talking about a shrew. Do they have shrews in Tennessee? I’ve never seen one. Images fly through my mind:

Or:

Maybe that’s his code for “you’re a hot shrew”?

I finally stand up, and look at Missy. On her back, I see tiny, furry claws clinging to her fur. Not a shrew, a baby mouse. He somehow found Missy, and was trying to burrow in to keep warm. I picked him up and carried him outside, wishing I knew the best place to put him. I wonder if it was the mouse from the shed. How did a baby mouse get into the living room? Are there more? Why am I always rescuing mice?

Update:

I am sad to report that this morning we found a squished baby mouse on the driveway, but 5 feet from the place I let him go last night. I am trying to convince myself that it’s another mouse, but in my heart I know it’s him. Did I step on him? Did I run him over with the Honda? Cameron was so funny, she tried to give him some dignity by covering his little body with leaves.

I grew up in the suburbs, and rarely encountered death. I remember when our dog, Whiskers, died. I also remember a hamster dying (very traumatic incident, actually). Raising chickens was tough for me initially. I had to get very comfortable with life, death and saying goodbye to friends, often by picking up their half-eaten remains. I feel like I’ve developed a pretty tough outlook over the last 8 years, but once in a while something gets through my layer of protection. Last month it was a mouse.

As a rule, mice are a pain in the ass. They taint your chicken feed, chew holes in your gear, spread illness. But when you’re looking at a single baby, it changes things. I was planting ferns by the front door, and lugged a bag of potting soil from the shed to the front of the house. As I pulled out soil, I noticed a clump of soft grass and fur, and inside was a squirming baby mouse. He was probably cold, and pretty nervous about all the unexpected movement.

So what to do? Chuck him in the woods? Smoosh him? No, I couldn’t bear it. So, I took his little nest, put it in a basket, tucked him inside, and put the basket back in the shed. With any luck his mama would find him and carry him to a new home.

Returning to the potting project — guess who else was in the bag of soil? Mama, dammit. So, I lugged the bag back to the shed, slowly dumped it into a galvanized tub until she tumbled out. I picked her out of the dirt and placed her near the basket with her baby, but she’d had enough and made a beeline for the outside.

The hardest part was resisting the temptation to check on the baby over the next week, but I left it alone. A week later I broke down, entered the shed and gently dug through the nest. Empty! My hope is that the Mama came back, picked the baby up and took him out safely, preferably not into our house or shed or chicken coop.

In the next few months I will probably be trying to kill mice infesting the shed, garage or chicken coop. But, I hope that little guy, and his Mama, will live (happily, and elsewhere).