Mouse Nest Made Of Feathers

It is too fantastic for words. It's made mostly of chicken feathers, and a little bit of hay. Bee-U-tee-ful.

XoxXOx

Long Tailed "Kangaroo" Mouse (AKA Woodland Jumping Mouse)

The other night while I was relaxing on the phone, suddenly my cat jumped in my window holding a mouse. Nothing unusual... until she dropped the mouse right at my feet and I noticed what I first thought as some kid of deformity or rare defect - the mouse had a tail well over two times it's body length!!! It also had really large back feet and hopped across my floor as well as ran...

I was not sure if this was a certain type of mouse, or if some freak of the forest had dropped in tha' cabin, till a friend of mine googled it and found that the Nature Center in my area of the western north carolina mountains had written an excited page about these long tailed cutie pies...
"Although they live here in the mountains, you many only rarely get the chance to glimpse at one in the wild. One reason is that they do not 'breed like rats.' They only have two litters a year and have a one-acre average population on only three mice (about 1/5 of that of deer mice). Also, they are nocturnal and are one of the few mice that hibernate. Their habitat is the cool, moist spruce-fir and hemlock-hardwood forests of our mountain area. Even in you are prowling the mountain tops at night and stumble into prime jumping mouse territory, about all you would see is a orange or gold furry blur with a long tail trailing like a meteorite streaking across the forest floor. Jumping mice live up to their name by leaping as much as three feet in a single bound!"
*

I love them and their amazing tails!!!

Xoxoxox

Mouse In A Bucket

Last night when I went in my bathroom to use my composting toilet, I noticed a tiny furry dot in the peat moss bucket! A little scared mouse!
I didn't know how it got in there and I wasn't entirely sure it could climb back out...

awwwwwwww. It's so cute, it's sick - I just can never get myself to hate mice... maybe if they passed on plagues (fleas on tha' rats?) like in the days of Ole' I could fear them but since I am from these modern times I just don't have any bones ta' pick with the mice.

So i poured it out the bucket into one of my outside potted plants and watched it run away!

Xxoxoxo

Hehyo Wittle Mouse!

When the chickens and guinea hens moved out the coop... somebody else moved in! Using the paper shreds and the feathers left behind this adorable mouse made the most beautiful nest ever (you know except if it had some glitter and sequins to work with). Mouser happens to be super friendly too, it popped out the nest to check me out :) --- and how cute is it dat a wittle feather is stuck on it's nose!!!?
Many people are terrified and grossed out by mice, maybe from some kind of biological, evolutionary junk caused by rat poop/fleas giving us horrible plagues... but as for now, no plagues are afoot and I would snuggle up with this little fur muffin if it would let me. My cat Toots though, would eat it - so probably sharing a bed together at night wouldn't work out anyway.
XoXo

Wanna See Someone Cute?

Oh, she is so key-ute-es! She built the neato nest you can see here.
XoXo

Mouse Nests

Animals are hunkering down for the winter, and the mice have built some really well insulated nests! These were found when lifting up various pieces of canvas that had been stored outside and were going to be used for a project...that is till the puffy spectacular mouse houses were discovered. This first nest was near a few colored tarps which ended up making it's nest speckled with brightly colored string. :) I like to think about how when our backs are turned the mice are pulling our fabric apart.
This second mouse nest was found under thicker tarp in a field near the pig pen. It had access to the canvas strings (or soft stuffing from the pig's blanket), hay & sticks.
Something to note about the way animals & birds build their houses is how airy, puffy and thick the walls are - and the way they weave into circles. These qualities are to insulate from cold winds - which originally baffled my trained human mind... I would have guessed without learning that the thicker tighter weave would keep me warmer, but it's not the case.
Maybe the critters are onto something too- with their natural built temporary houses - I doubt they get very attached and when it falls apart they build the next one... without paying a penny.
XoXo