Sunday, September 12, 2004

Rathadamist No More...

Next up... Ginger!

That little mini hamster turned out to be one of the bitingest lil' critters we've ever had. So we returned him to the store from whence he came, and bought an adorable little gerbil.

Our daughter got her first gerbil about five years ago for a 6th grade science fair project. That gerbil was a pearl gray color and sweet as could be. "He" was called Earl, and he-later-identified-as-she lived a long, full life, with only a couple of unscheduled forays into the wilderness of carpeted areas. Actually, during the first such foray, our daughter acquired her 2nd gerbil, a cutie-pie with a white star on her forehead, appropriately named Star. As Earl was AWOL and the science fair project deadline was approaching, Star was the pinch hitter, so to speak. But Earl reappeared in time and ended up being the true star of the project. Earl and Star were happy together, and still very tame and sweet with our daughter.

Star didn't live all that long, though. And the little red one next, named Cinnamon, well... let's just say Earl didn't warm up to Cinnamon. It was a very traumatic 30 seconds. And Earl lived the rest of her life with no other gerbil companionship.

Then came Nutmeg. Turns out, Nutmeg was quite old when we bought her. Long in the tooth. So the elderly Nutmeg didn't reside with us very long.

And now we have the sweetheart of the bunch, Ginger. (We made sure this gerbil was a very small gerbil, so very young. She's almost a baby.)

Gerbils are wonderful little creatures, and they're easy to care for. Wonderful if you like rodents. And if you like little noises throughout the night, which our daughter now prefers, having gotten so used to it. She's declared that she will likely have gerbils throughout her life.

No comments:

Post a Comment