My kids found this mouse in the bike shed this morning. Need I say that tears were shed? (Sorry, no pun intended!)
Consulting Jakob's mammal encyclopaedia we found out it was a common woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus, nice name..). We didn't need an encyclopaedia to state that it was thoroughly demised...
This, of course, called for a funeral. A proper one, granddad came over and everything! (Now, he was coming over anyway, but still...) We all sang a sweet mouse song ("Når en liten mus skal ut å gå" for those of you who speak the language!), not particularly sad, admittedly, but the only one we could think of that was about mice. And the same one we had sung when I was little and my sister's hamster died.
The day picked up later, a beautiful autumn day, it must be said! But it
took some apple pie (fresh-baked by my darling hubby) to wipe those tears away...
7 comments:
How sad, yet sweet. I love that you sang to it. And that your husband bakes pie. Your kids will never forget that, like you remember the hamster.
We have mice as pets, such sweet furry little tiny ones... and we've had many a mouserel (mouse funeral!) singing the american songs "hickory dickory dock" and "three blind mice" to our dearly departed... yes, I'm sure apple pie chased away the tears just fine!
Oh, poor little mouse. How sweet to have a proper mouse funeral with pie and everything. Thanks for visiting my blog and of course I don't mind the link at all - I'm flattered. I'd love to know how you found me!
What a sweet post. Although a few years back I lived in W.Va and we had a horse barn. There was always mice and really large rats in the room where we kept the food. EEEEKKK! I would always kick the metal door with my foot before I opened it to give the little boogers a chance to get lost before I turned on the light.
I can't say that I would have cried over one of them. Yuck! (Scared the crap out of me!)
Thanks so much for the linkage. I've done the same for you so I'll be coming by more often. I've posted a new "snippet". Come on by and check it out! Have a great week!
Deni
I have two things to say about this sweet post.
First, your children would not make it more than three days at my house before coming upon some creature either dead already or in the process of becoming mauled by one of our four cats and two dogs.
Second, it reminds me of a childhood experience I had - the funeral my sisters, little brother and I held for a 'possum discovered in our backyard the morning after a night of camping out.
Good little Episcopalian children that we were, we had a ceremony.
My little brother was holding a cross we made out of some sticks found under the azalea bushes as he led the procession.
Next came my two sisters holding the dead animal stretched across the couple sticks. A tissue had been placed over the body so no one had to look at the dog marks of death.
I brought up the rear swinging a shovel as I marched to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers.
Everything came to a screeching halt when I swung the blade of the shovel into the back of my little sister's foot almost amputating her heel.
The funeral turned into an emergency visit to the doctor. When we returned, the fuzzy little gray body was gone. I think my father took over.
Oh, my. What a charming story. You're the best mom ever, I think.
Well... I actually find "Når en liten mus skal ut å gå" extremely sad in this context. Because this poor little mouse can not "ut å gå" anym-m-m-mooore...
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