Hey, Tim Jones, here. I have said before that our family has a thing for aviation, but this post isn’t about that kind of flying. This post concerns the flying squirrel, at left.
A little background; We have animals. As of this past Christmas, we have a domestic mammal to human ratio of exactly 1:1. Living with, and sponging off the four of us, we have 2 cats and 2 dogs. The dogs don’t really come into this story.
Our latest arrival is my daughter’s prim, slender and graceful grey tabby. Being new, she has been kept mostly inside. Our other cat, Ozzie (named for the character Ozymandias, of the Tripods trilogy) is an outdoor veteran, and comes and goes as he pleases. He’s also huge. This Maine Coon cat has actually been mistaken for a real racoon on more than one occasion. One thing I like about him is that he doesn’t seem to need us, but hangs around, anyway. I figure he must like us.
He likes us so much, in fact, that he sometimes brings us "presents". He most often leaves these presents on the front doorstep, and they are most often dead.
Most often.
Occasionally, they are "only mostly dead", and rarely (when he wants something to play with, I guess) Ozzie brings us an animal that is apparently not even injured. Not even a little. This has led to a few memorable episodes, one of which involved a huge field rat, a pair of weenie tongs, and a Big Gulp cup.
This last week, Ozzie brought us, at 5:00 in the morning, the above pictured living, healthy flying squirrel, in full vigor. He promptly let it loose. Now, flying squirrels are really cute, as well as fast, and they are jumpy. I’m just here to say, that unless your whole family have chased a flying squirrel aound the house in your pajamas, you have just never had any fun. We were all nearly in tears of laughter by the time the little dickens was succesfully captured (first we had to hustle our domestic furries into various bedrooms, in order to prevent them tearing Francis to bits… that’s what we named it – a fine unisex name, could be "Francis" or "Frances", and, you know, invoking a saint in these situations can never hurt).
The whole point, of course, was to capture Francis without injury. In the end, I managed to pop a Tupperware tub over him, and shortly we all gathered outside in the dark to watch him scamper off. I couldn’t help but think that it was a lot like an alien abduction story, and wondered if he had a family to whom he would have to explain the whole episode. I expect that coming in with the strong scent of cat on your fur would be a little unusual in squirrel society.
Anyway, the operation was successful. We rescued from a grisly end a creature of a species we were not even aware lived in the neighborhood. I always thought flying squirrels were kind of exotic. It turns out they are pretty common, but rarely seen, because they are nocturnal. Nocturnal animals are cool.
Aw, Francis is so cute!! 🙂 Glad you were able to save his(her?) life. I have never seen a flying squirrel except in pictures (I live in NYC).
Your cat may be trying to teach you to hunt. That is why they sometimes bring live or injured prey. The dead ones are gifts. That cat definitely considers you his “people” 🙂
Didn’t the name, “Rocky”, occur to you? It’s also a unisex name; a couple of fighters and Gary Cooper’s wife (God’s instrument to bring him into the Church) were named “Rocky”.
Now, if the cat drags home a moose, I expect you to give it a proper name.
And I don’t mean “Mister”. (Dating myself)
Rocky! Of course!!
D’oh!
Is this a flying squirrel blog or a square dancing blog? Hmm… and yet it won best apologetics blog? I really do love your blog, Jimmy. I just prefer it much more so when it is about the faith that we all seek and struggle to understand. I appreciate it less so when it is about science fiction. Your tangents allowed, I would prefer to see them briefer…
Aquinas: The difference between work and play is that work has a purpose, while play does not, but there must be a time for play, and even for foolishness. This post, I believe, qualifies as foolishness.
When there’s a post that doesn’t interest me, I ignore it(what a concept!).
BTW, this is Tim’s post, as can be seen in big red letters at the top left of the post (also in the first 4 words of the post).
I hereby promise to never complain about my dull mornings again 🙂
Felis Sylvestris? Really! Cool! I’ve read very interesting and appealing things about those domesticated wildcats. Do you find they are as intelligent as reputed?
Bill,
I believe everything past Aquinas: The difference between work and play is that work has a purpose, while play does not
is yours and not St. Thomas’
“I’m just here to say, that unless your whole family have chased a flying squirrel aound the house in your pajamas, you have just never had any fun.”
Are you suggesting that your readers go out and CAPTURE wild animals? Some Catholic apologetics blog this is. The scandal!!! Next thing you know, you’ll be telling us that uncircumcised men can be saved!!!
Well David, did you have to go that far?
Where do you live that you have flying squirrels?
No matter what the topic of the blog entry is. We all must remember that Jimmy has a cowboy hat on. Thus, he is in charge.
Wow! We’ve chased birds that have come down the chimney, chipmunks that have got in somehow, bats in the window, and my mom even shot a large rodent inside the cabin (with a 45), but we’ve never had a flying squirrel! Nor have we named any of them, unless you don’t count the unprintable monikers my father gave them.
“Your cat may be trying to teach you to hunt. That is why they sometimes bring live or injured prey.”
And he did learn how to hunt a squirrel, obviously. :)))
Moment treasure for family, God give some animal strange gift like to fly, maybe really gift to the man.
Some Day,
’twas tongue-in-cheek.
Wow, how did you avoid getting bitten? When I was little my father built a non-lethal squirrel trap. We used to bait it with pecans and after dark put it in the crook of an oak tree in our back yard. It caught flying squirrels about three times as often as other things (such as rats, tree squirrels with bushy tails). The flying squirrels bite! We did manage to tame a young one once and kept it for a year or so. This was in New Orleans and the trees are full of all sorts of creatures.
I used to love animals like crazy.
I would know all the names.
There are some really amazing creations of God out there.
I did enjoy reading that story.
My family has chased chipmonks out of the house on many occasions. We’ve also tried to save baby grey squirrels but they always get sick and die after a few days of being fed cow milk. The baby blue jay was a failure as well. The cats have never brought back a live flying squirrel though, only dead ones.
The worst is when the rodent hides and you can’t find it, until the smell leads you to it a week or two later.
As a side note, I thought I was good with knowledge of animals but I have no idea what those animals besides the flying squirrel you mentioned are. Field rat ok must be a rat type thing, but weenie tong and Big Gulp cup? Crazy west coast. Why can’t you call your animals by normal names, or better yet just have normal animals 🙂
😉
JRS: If you want to keep small critters out of the house, get some plug-in devices that emit an electromagnetic field and/or hypersonic sound. I tried that a few years ago and haven’t heard a mouse in the wall since, nor any mouse droppings in the garage.
JR- have you tried asking a local hospital for out of date human formula? It worked great for several batches of kittens.
Tim J.,
In the ten years I’ve been aware of the Tripods trilogy (first picked it up when I was 22), you’re the only other person I’ve ever encoutered who’s ever heard of it! Now if only I get the school board to make this required reading at my local high school…
The Tripods totally rocks! Have you ever seen the BBC adaptation on video?
“We thank the Tripods”.
Good site! I’ll stay reading! Keep improving!