Life and Death

What a tragic morning!!

I found a family of teeny tiny mice hiding in Tassen´s dogfood bag.
I tipped the bag to shake some food into my hand and give it to him (he had those wonderful hungry puppy eyes, I couldn´t help it) and out leapt 2 itty bitty mice! One fell into my empty rainboot, and the other into Anders´boot! I took the boots out onto the lawn and tipped them out carefully, and the mice jetted so fast back under the house. Oops! In retrospect, I should have brought them really far from the house, but I was kind of in shock.

I opened the bag again and saw 2 more mice! One was definitely dead, crushed under the big dogfood pellets, and the other one was lying on its side blinking up at me, stunned and possibly wounded.

I pulled the tiny deceased one out by its tail and put it on the lawn by a tree, then I carefully lifted up the blinky guy. He was SO cute and so soft, I put him in my hand and sat down to look at him. My heart was seriously aching. He was about the size of my thumb, and looked just like a friendly mouse out of a childrens storybook. He was breathing heavy and kept blinking his eyes slowly. Eventually he tried to stand, but it was clear that his right hind leg was broken.
What made me especially upset was that the leg probably broke when I shook the bag! I had no idea there were delicate little bones in there.

So I was tearing up a little bit and trying to decide what to do to put this little guy out of his misery.. I wasn´t about to ask Anders if I could make a tiny mouse bandage and toothpick crutch or anything. Anders came home at that moment and I told him what had happened. Despite the fact that he´s a practical guy and those mice are nasty little vermin he puts traps out for, he did look sincerely sorry for my wounded little friend. He said "He´s suffering?" and I nodded and he nodded and just said "You should take him to the cat." Which was kind of what I was thinking. I didn´t have the heart to kill him myself, and that´s just what cats like to do. So really, I put one animal friend out of his misery, and at the same time gave a little gift to another animal friend. Right?

I walked to the barn with the mouse in my hand, and carefully placed him on some hay, and Chloe ran down and sniffed him and I just had to leave because it was too tragic. He was the cutest thing in the whole world! I´m pretty much a murderer.

You´d think by now I would be a little immune to this animal life & death thing. I mean, on Monday I helped gather rams to bring to slaughter. I fed a wounded lamb that later had to be shot. But those things I somehow managed to disconnect myself from, because I didn´t have a hand in the killing. In the mouse situation, it was all me! Ugh. I guess it´s better than getting snapped in half by a mousetrap when you´re just trying to nibble some cheese, eh? I don´t know. It´s all so gruesome.

I´ll probably recover by tomorrow. But RIP little wounded mousey. Sorry I didn´t save you.