What’s not to celebrate on a day when you not only spot a hummingbird moth but also manage to take a reasonable picture of the little darter?
When candles were the word of the day earlier this month, I wrote about celebration. So today I’ll celebrate that I can write about whatever I choose unconstrained by a particular word.
When Liam was about six, his father brought him two male hamsters and a cage. One of the hamsters escaped somehow and the other was seriously not a good pet, although it could be reasonably entertaining to poke a pencil into his cage as he would reliably start to shred it. He did the same with fingers. Liam brought all the neighborhood kids up to visit the hamster. First thing I told them was, “do not try to pick him up. And do not put your fingers anywhere in his cage.” The second thing I told them was, “come over to the sink and we’ll wash off the blood,” since they invariably did poke their fingers right into biting range of the vicious little beast. Then they would come find me and hold up tiny bleeding fingers. “Madame, he bit us!” I was bracing myself for a delegation of neighborhood parents to descend on our apartment with outrage and hamster control on their minds. I sort of wished they would, since not only would Hamsty not play, but he enjoyed squeaking his wheel all night long. Moving the cage into the hallway did not diminish the squeak volume.
Anyone who has kept rodents with children will not be surprised to learn that Hamsty was delivered of eleven wee baby hamsters shortly thereafter. Or had I counted wrong and there were only nine? One day we were about to go out somewhere and I noticed one of the babies was dead. I didn’t tell Liam, postponing this terrible news until our return. But then, when we returned, the dead baby was gone! So maybe I had counted correctly the first time. As the number of babies continued to decrease, I became more and more horrified at the terrible mother, but my aunt explained that the mother just needed the food to make milk for the rest of the babies and that hamsters eating their babies was quite normal. Liam seemed less perturbed by this theory than I and she did manage to raise a few of the babies into adulthood.
As we left Switzerland shortly thereafter, Liam’s father took the hamsters and I never inquired how they made out, though I did read about them in an appellate judge’s opinion. I had not attended the appeal, which protested a decision the family court had made to sanction our staying in the United States, but I received a copy of the decision. The judges opined that missing hamsters was not sufficient reason to send a child to live with his father.
Nice photo. I celebrate every day that we no longer are awakened in the night to hamster wheel squeaks and we'll never again awaken in the morning to see the remains of the one the other devoured. Yep, those days are in the past. You sure bring up a lot of memories :-)
Great shot! Nice hamster memories, too. Is there a parent around who doesn't have some story of a dead rodent pet somewhere in their history??? Must be a rite of passage!
These creatures are really fascinating and wow- you got a great shot of it!! We had hamsters in our household too. Only one was a little feisty and I inadvertently tossed her/him? across the room once when I was taking her/him? out to clean the cage and the little critter decided to take a nip out of my finger. It was such a knee-jerk reaction I was horrified I'd not thought before I tossed! Thankfully landing on a fully padded and carpeted bedroom floor buffered the fall and from that point on I did not pick the hamster up by my hands when I went to clean the cage. I'd push it into a box with something gentle and then slowly spill it back into the cage when I was done. Excellent shot!!
