One glance at the mini-pit this a.m. revealed a full sized field mouse huddled down there. It's one thing to know how to dig a hole by hand to house a gray water drain barrel on your own land but quite another to keep out visitors in the process. My regular readers will know that we acquired two orphaned baby kangaroo rats as pets in just this way a mere eight days ago. Nobody had checked in since then....but now, Mr. Mouse.

The first thing Pam said after I reported the arrival of our latest visitor? "No more bringing babies home on a string!"

That's an "in joke". When my wife was a child, she used to arrive at her parents' home with a kitten or any other infantile animal she could find, announcing each time that the little one had followed her home and hoping she'd be allowed to keep it. Never mind the string she'd tied around the baby's neck--except for frogs, which she carried home in her two hands--to encourage the following! Even so, she had a point. Our tiny camp trailer is more than "full up" with two cats, a leopard gecko, and two kangaroo rats already in residence.

Clearly, then, it was time to help the field mouse out of the pit. A few quick snapshots first, of course....

The best way to perform Mouse Rescue seemed to involve a five gallon plastic bucket: Climb down into the hole, wearing cowhide gloves just in case, herd the rodent into the pail, and.... Just one problem. We had a mouse to rescue from the pit a few weeks ago. It was so frightened by my presence (wisely so; bigger beings are not always mouse-friendly) that it was a close call between rescuing and injuring the beastie. Got it done, but the memory made me think of Prajapati.

Prajapati is a spiritual Master who works with animals. I first read about him in 1974, have mentally called on him for help many times since then, and know from experience that he's my go-to guy for animal rescue situations. The rodent hadn't moved a whisker. We weren't certain it could move; perhaps the fall had injured its spine or something.

Be that as it may, I asked Prajapati to help the unwilling visitor understand I was there to help. It was not the first time I'd asked Prajapati to help a field  mouse, but it was the first time I'd decided to make personal contact with the animal. The results were little short of amazing.

Mr. Mouse didn't even flinch as I climbed down beside him (somehow I felt he was a he), placed the bucket with the opening next to him, and began easing my gloved hands in his direction. Amazingly, he sniffed at my hand like any house pet might do! By this time, I was really unsure of his ability to move on his own. Then I got disabused of that notion: As both of my hands began to close around him, brushing against his hips, he came abruptly to life and leaped madly into the pail! Which, of course, I promptly tipped upright so he couldn't get out again until I was ready to let him go. Whew! Thank you, Prajapati!

Naturally, he did have to suffer the indignity of modeling for a few more photos.

Once I'd picked out a batch of grass and eased the bucket down on its side so the mouse could leave when he wanted, he seemed to understand. For a time, he sat up perkily at the back of the container, eyeing the opening but making no move beyond grooming himself and nibbling at a grass stem that happened to be handy. You know, normal mousy stuff.

It might have been worth hovering nearby, waiting patiently to get a great shot of the little guy as he actually prepared to exit his rescue vehicle, but the camera had no more memory. By the time I'd loaded the existing pictures onto my computer and returned to see how things were going, Mr. Field Mouse had gone.

One could hope he passed the word, put out an APB to all mousedom that there was a pit near our camp trailer which was best avoided, but most likely he was to embarrassed too mention it at all.

At least we never have to rescure any of the desert grassland whiptail lizards. They run up and down the clay sides of the pit like they're on level ground..

 By late morning, Mr. Mouse was back "out there" somewhere.  Maybe snugged in deep under a thick tuft of bunchgrass, like some of his cousins do from time to time.  Maybe wandering, out to find friendlier turf where the ground doesn't drop out from under you and scary human monsters come after you with giant catcher-thingies. 

Or maybe just  stopping a while to smell--or nibble--the flowers.