MOC Day 11 | The Great Fall
mywisecrafts, Jan 13, 2021
- Description:
- my story is 714 words long, I've copy and pasted it below my credits for those who may want to read it.
Paula Kesselring | Autumnal Days Kit
https://the-lilypad.com/store/Autumnal-Days.html
Paula Kesselring | Typewriter Alpha 1 & 2
https://the-lilypad.com/store/Typewriter-Alpha-1-and-2.html
Scrapping with Liz | Artsy Journal Template 23
https://the-lilypad.com/store/Artsy-Journal-Digital-Scrapbook-Templates-23.html
This is Blitzen (my daughter named him). We don’t know for sure when he was born. We do know that when we found him his eyes were still closed so that put him less than 5 weeks old. Here’s his story from our perspective. It all happened because of a GREAT FALL. The FALL occurred during Tropical Storm Eta. After the storm passed through, I was out cleaning up all the debris that had fallen from the trees and blown into our yard. While I was cleaning up the driveway, there was the clump of my moss that our dog was trying to shred because he thought it would be fun. I beat him to the moss and placed my foot on it. When I did, I heard this squeaking. It caught me off guard and then I was like, “what the hell” is that. I carefully pulled back the moss while holding the dog at bay and discovered it was a squirrel nest. Inside the nest were 3 baby squirrels. Only one was alive. We are assuming they eye died from the impact of the fall or they just couldn’t stay warm enough to survive. The tree that the nest was blown from is one of the tallest trees on our property. Poor Blitzen was soaking wet and almost ice cold to touch. We (my daughter and I) tried to re-home him, but we couldn’t get the mama squirrel to come back. Meanwhile, we placed him in a cardboard box and I had a lamp warming the box (no him directly). While he was warming up, I had my friend Google help me research what to do in this situation while I was waiting for Kennedy’s former science teacher to get answer my message. We made Blitzen some homemade Pedialyte and gave him some to drink every couple of hours. After a few hours, Blitzen had fully dried out and seemed to be ok. Kennedy’s teacher got back to us and she agreed to take Blitzen in and rehab him for us (as my husband was adamantly opposed to keeping him). Kennedy and I sadly dropped him off at her house. He was there for several days, she got him eating from a syringe with a special nipple for squirrels and his eyes opened. Shortly after his eyes opened, she asked if we would be interested in taking him back as she had some other babies dropped off that were younger and needed care as well. I finally convinced my husband that this was a great experience for Kennedy. (I really just wanted the squirrel back.)
That weekend we went and picked up the squirrel and brought him back to our house. The first week he stayed in a box in my office/craft space where we could keep a heating pad on the box to keep him warm. During this time, we were still “bottle feeding” him and introducing cheerios, nuts, fruits and veggies to him. We built him a little house that he could become accustomed to while he was still living in the house. We also knew this would now be his home and help his transition back to nature easier since he would have a “safe” place to come back to. After his home was built, \we took one of the old crates that we had, double wrapped it in chicken wire and placed Blitzen’s home and a tree branch in there. This allowed him to acclimate to the house, the crate kept him from jumping out of the box and between the crate and the branch it provided him a safe place to learn how to climb. Plus, the crate made it easier to move him when we put him outside to start getting acclimated to the sight and sounds.
After several weeks, Blitzen decided he was ready to be on his own in nature. It was definitely bittersweet for us. The first few days he didn’t come back around and then on the third day he did. Now he comes around on a regular basis looking for handouts. So much so, that he can actually tell if it’s my daughter or I and will run up to us. To think, it all started because of a Great Fall.
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- Category:
- Month of Challenges 9
- Uploaded By:
- mywisecrafts
- Date:
- Jan 13, 2021
- View Count:
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- Comment Count:
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