Do you have friends or family that you have fun with like that? We try to have our gatherings each time one of us has a birthday. That insures we don't let other things get in the way of seeing each other since we all live in different places.
On Friday of last week, I became foster mom for a couple of small squirrels whose nest had been blown down on my deck. Their eyes were not open and they were squirming around cold and wet. So I brought them inside not knowing one thing about caring for the little creatures.
My first instinct was to get them dry and warm. I put them in a shoebox with shredded paper from my shredder. Then I found a cotton glove and filled it with dried beans. Tied it off and heated it in the microwave for minute. I made sure it was not too hot before I placed in in the box with the babies. They loved it!
See this picture shows how they loved it.
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| See them cling to the warm "bean bag" I made for them. |
I felt they needed nourishment so I went online and googled how to care for baby squirrels. I found all I needed to know. I put a tsp. of salt and three tablespoons of sugar into a quart of warm water. I found a 2 cc syringe in the house and began to give them a little bit of the water from the syringe. They loved it. I could tell they were dehydrated because I pinched a little of the skin on their backs and, like with humans, the skin did not quickly fall back and flat. According to the directions online, the most important thing to do at this time was keep them warm and give them the water about every 2 hours.
I did a good job with them until I went to sleep around midnight. I set my clock to wake me up every two hours, but I woke up before the clock alarmed. All night long I fed the little sweethearts even though they did not appreciate my waking them. I wiped them down with a warm cloth each time. That was to wake them up as their mother would do, and to stimulate them to urinate and defecate. It worked! I reheated the bean bag glove each time as well.
The warm wet cloth was similar to the mother squirrel's licking them, it said in my directions. By morning I was exhausted. I can't function without sleep.
Gratefully, I handed them over to a writing student of mine, Kathy Knapp, who has raised a wild squirrel and loves animals. Before the day was done, Kathy and her husband found a man who would rehab them and one day let them go to the wild. My friend, Sarah, wanted to keep them and raise them, but her husband nixed that idea. She even went out and bought formula and a tiny feeding bottle. I didn't know there was formula available for baby squirrels, but it seems the same formula given to tiny kittens can be used for the squirrels.
Needless to say, I was still tired when my house guests arrived on Sunday afternoon, but rallied quickly and we had a grand old time on Monday.
I hope no more squirrels build nests in trees over my house. I saw a new bird nest today in a rhododendron bush and I told my sister, I will not look at that nest or the area under and around it because I don't want to see any little birds on the ground or needing help.
This week I hold my last writing class for the summer here in my studio. On Saturday we host the last guest instructor for this year. My work then will center on the tribute NCWN and NCWN West will hold in honor of Kathryn Stripling Byer on October 1. I hope everyone will come to the Jackson County Library in Sylva, NC for that event. She deserves all of the praise and attributes for her outstanding life of writing and working with writers.
Have a good week and I'll see you next time.
