The cat scrambled over our colorful, hooked throw rug. It pounced to the side, eyes focused on the gray, wiggling ball of fur burrowing under the rug. I reached down and pulled back the rug, “Look cat, catch your mouse and take it out of the house.”
The cat just sat there watching, as a mole, not a mouse, dashed toward the wall, scratching frantically to pull itself under something, anything.
“Ohhh, yuk! Come here,” I yelled at our resident teenager. “Your cat caught a mole and brought it inside.” I grabbed a paper sack to hold the mole against the wall. The mole’s spade-like paws hooked onto the edge of the sack, pulled mightily and escaped.
I shifted the sack to re-corner it. “Hurry up!”
Its shovel paws fought to find the edge of the sack again. The cat wandered over, eyes alert to the mole’s every move, waiting for me to pick the thing up just as it used to wait for me to capture escaping hamsters it had cornered.
She came in. “A what?”
“A mole.”
“Let me see.”
I pulled the paper back, revealing the silky, rich fur of a sightless mole, feeling its way to safety with its wide paws.
She laughed, “Don’t let it get away. I want to keep it.”
“You what?!”
“I want to keep it.”
Sure, we had once kept a baby possum and an infant wild rabbit, but I thought the fuzzy critter stage had ended when the hamster died last year.
“All right, but it stays outside.” She came back with a large paper sack.
Between the two of us, we guided it into that sack.
When her dad came home, she proudly showed off her newest acquisition. He pulled out my blue, enamel canner and added dirt to make a mole safe cage.
Next thing I knew, they were studying Mr. Mole burrowing into the loose soil they had provided. My teenager reached into the pot, shoved aside the moving dirt and picked up the mole.
“Look, Mom,” she set the mole on the grass. Using it’s over sized front paws and long snout, it nuzzled under a tuft of grass and headed down.
“You better not let it go too far,” my husband warned her. “Once those paws get a grip, it will be very hard to pull out.” She pulled it back, let the mole angle underneath the grass one more time, then picked it up and dropped it in the pot.
At least Mr. Mole won’t be like the hamster that climbed to the top of its cage to claw and chew every night, seeking to escape. His instincts for safety and escape keep him digging down under the dirt, out of sight and sound. And that’s where he can stay.
While I was inside making our supper, she drafted the next-door neighbors to help hunt worms for the mole’s supper. After supper, they shoveled dirt into our car top carrier, converting it into the largest critter cage ever at our house.
So once again, our household has another furry critter for a pet. I bet we get more, too. Trained by our years of hamsters, the cats corner, but do not eat, running furry critters. Little furry surprises await me under the hooked rug.