Missing Squirrel

I was downstairs in my sewing area, as I have been sewing a ton of Christmas items lately, and I decided to be kind to the animals and let the squirrels out.  I figure, as long as I am downstairs what's the harm?


Can I tell you that it is a little alarming to be sewing and suddenly have something crawl up your pant leg?  For some reason, Pepper loves to climb up and see what I am working on.


Anyway, I had been sewing for a hour or so and decided that I was cold and done with what I was working on, so it was time to wrangle the beasts.  In the past we have put the gliders dinner in their cage and they have come bounding out of where they have been playing like any other crazy house pet.  We rang the dinner bell.  No Pepper.  I put the cup of fruit and cottage cheese in the cage, Chili, the shy silent type appears from his hibernation pouch and starts chowing down.  No Pepper.


I turn on all the basement lights and rattle some of the shelving.  No Pepper.  I throw up my hands and call Hannah downstairs, since they are her pets and the least she can do is help wrangle Pepper since I played with them and fed them.  Hannah tries.  No Pepper.


I am getting tired, and colder, and finally tell Hannah I am going upstairs to bed and she can deal with the animals.  I'm done.  Put the missing squirrel posters up in the morning, I'm tired.  Hannah begs me to stay a few more minutes and help.  We try everything.  Food.  Pine nuts.  Shelving rattling.  Lights on in the crawl spaces.  I am starting to freak out.  I am thinking Pepper has gotten outside some how and she is a gonner.


Then, Hannah has the brilliant idea that we should let the dog downstairs.  Chloe will sniff the squirrel out.  Chloe is let downstairs and immediately goes over to the cage and starts harassing Chili.  Not what we wanted.  We wrangle Chloe away from the cage and she heads straight for the shelving and starts sniffing up a storm near the far shelf.


Pepper.  Not only is Pepper there, but she has somehow managed to get herself trapped in a clear plastic bin of Hannah's junk.  The poor thing.  If we had gone to bed, she would have been trapped there all night.


Pepper was freed.  Chloe was rewarded.  Everyone is going to bed.  

Escape!

My vacuum broke about ten days ago.  The beater bar end melted after 5 or 6 years of use, and the vacuum was kaput.  So I jumped on the Bissel web-site and ordered a new one, thinking it wouldn't take but a day or two, but I was wrong.


Why, no, what, does this have to do with a story about Pepper the wonder glider escaping?  You will see, my friend.  You will see.


Last week I got the new beater bar for my vacuum, and I was very excited.  Very excited that my daughter could resume her chore of vacuuming, and that it wouldn't seem as if I was picking up debris on my socks as I walked through my family room carpeting.  The new beater bar part fit like a dream, and the vacuum sat waiting for the weekend when Hannah was free of soccer practice and homework.  She promised to vacuum the WHOLE house.


Hannah also cleaned (took it outside and scrubbed it) the sugar glider cage and on Sunday night I went downstairs with her to check to make sure the cage and gliders were back in place.  


Hannah and I checked the cage as Chili was doing his favorite thing in the world, riding his wodent wheel.  We assumed Pepper-le-pew was napping in her shoebox, or lounging in her pouch, but I did not lay eyes on her.  The doors to the cage were closed and locked.  All was well.


On the way back up the stairs I had a Psych moment and flashed on a little black thing on the freshly vacuumed stair.  We walked up to bed, and I tossed this little black thing from the stair around in my head, thinking that I probably should have actually laid eyes on Pepper before leaving the basement.  Curiosity got the best of me and I drug Hannah back downy he stairs to lay eyes on Pepper.  


No Pepper.  But where could she be?  The cage was closed.  Upon further investigation, we noticed that the condo in the sky part of the cage (a second cage on top of their cage that has a dryer vent tunnel leading to it) was not connected correctly and one of the clasps was not hooked together.  


Long about then Chloe saunters down the stairs.  Chloe starts freaking out, chasing something...oh crap.  Pepper.  She is loose.


Grab the dog, throe her upstairs, and the squirrel hunt ensues.  A half an hour later after dancing with a large Christmas tree and almost crushing Pepper with a stack of luggage Pepper was found, and back in the tightly locked cage.

Gratuitous Pet Photos

Because I am a horrible, wicked person, I have to post some gratuitous pet photos.  First up  squirrel torture...

We first purchased this horrible plastic ball for Chili and Pepper a few days after they came home from the breeder.  We originally bought the ball to keep the babies safe from Chloe, and we thought the babies could drive Chloe crazy with it.  I think we tried the ball once, and I had an attack on how cruel it seemed to cram the little boogers in it.  A few months have passed, so we brought it out again to see how Pepe' le Pew would fare, and she loved it!

On to Chloe.  She was getting to be a mangy mutt that could not see her own nose.  She looks pretty pissed in this picture, which cracks me up. Her hair was getting gross and long and the hair on her nose and on her paws was especially bad.

Saturday she went for her day of beauty, and came home form the spa looking like this...

Toe nails done.  Ears plucked.  

Gorgeous as ever.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

Pepper, the crazy feisty minx, decided to come out of her

pouch last night and crawl up into the collar of my fleece.

She stayed up there for 20 minutes or so, just snuggling.

Very sweet.

The Dynamic Duo

Recently I received the question, What IS Pepper?  (Look to the RIGHT----->)

Pepper is a sugar glider, a flying squirrel, the genus name Petaurus breviceps (to get all scienc-y on you), basically a small gliding marsupial, and she is part of the dynamic duo of Chili and Pepper, reasons number 2 and 3 on the “why we now have to hire house sitters” list.

Chili (pictured above) is Pepper's brother. Which brings us to one of the stranger conversations I’ve ever had in my life.  The five (+Chloe) of us were sitting at the adoption site meeting Chili and Pepper for the first time when the subject of Chili and Pepper’s relationship arose.  David, ever the scientist, asked if the babies were monozygotic or dizygotic.

What???

Let me stop right here and dumb it down for us below IQ 140 folk and tell you that I had to look up monozygotic and dizygotic when I got home.  Mono=1 egg/twins, and Di=2 eggs/twins.  Duh, twins.  He was asking if they were twins.  Okay, back to the story.

Gail, the breeder, not skipping a beat, proceeds to inform us that marsupial females have two lateral vaginas, which lead to separate uteruses, but both open externally through the same orifice.  A third canal, the median vagina, is used for birth.   She goes on to inform us that males have a two-pronged penis.  Hum…in…a…what????  You lost me at 2 vaginas, I caught back up with you at uterus, then I blacked out again at 2 pronged penis.

Seriously?

David and I look at each other, then both look at our angelic 10 year old Bubba sitting between us.  This is NOT going to be good.  Did this woman just tell us, in front of Bubba, that one of our new cuddly babies has a two pronged penis?  Why would Gail, who does not know if we have even broached the subject of the birds and the bees with Bubba (which we have BTW), give us the blow by blow on marsupial reproduction?

I flash to the doorbell ringing at our house and some new church friends entering our home for the first time.  We sit down to a meal with these fine new friends and Bubba blurts in Tourette’s like fashion, “Chili’s penis has two prongs!”  David seems to be flashing on the same scenario.

Let’s just say we are waiting for that gem to come out at the most in opportune time, say Easter dinner with all the family, or waiting to invite friends over until Bubba develops his filter.

And, yes, Chili and Pepper really do fly.