Today has been mostly involved in relocating and rehousing and releasing some wild mice that were captured in my home. The original batch was captured during the winter, so I didn't want to release them as their chances wouldn't have been too good. Before the basement started flooding all the time this house was a mouse paradise, but now with the combination of the floods, my trapping, and the bumbling efforts of our cats, we seem to be running out of mouse problems. NOw it is just all the ones that ar hanging out in cages. Two males from the original capture each have their own Habitrail Mini, and seem to enjoy their lives, specifically The Wheel. They were seperated off from a group of females, that were pregnant, of course. So then I seperated out the male babies, but not quick enough. Mice breed very quickly, and as soon as a doe has a litter the male will breed her again. The problem is removing the males before they are sexually mature. Not fun when they are all wild. Today I released a total of five males, I believe. Two were recent captures that do not like caged life, the other two to three were from the Beta Batch, removed from the females and all showing good wild traits. They are now exploring the river valley, I wish them luck. Five more are on the slate to be released. We have two wild mice that were hand raised from babies, one before his eyes were opened. The male, Squeaker, is very tame, while the other, Mikki, exhibits wild characteristics. Mikki was near death when we found her. Both were captures by cats, and I didn't have much hope for them, but we nursed them back to health. There is also one wild female, Stubby, that was attack by her littermates losing part of her tail. I though she was going to die she looked in such bad shape, but she has been nursed back to health as well. These three will be staying, as will the two original males, Mr. Mouse and Achilles. There is one older female that is a recent live trap capture that might stay, as I think she might not survive long in the wild, and I think she might have been an escapee from the original Alpha Batch. It's pretty much up to her. If she exhibits a lot of wild behaviour and attempts escape, I'll let her go, if she is content she can stay.
Today I have been reading Harry Stephen Keeler, which is an experience. His writing is horrible and great at the same time! He describes things in minute detail in horrible run-on sentences, but he comes up with some of the most bizarre ideas that you can't help but be intrigued. http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/newlinks/search.cgi?d=1&query=keeler to read some of his work on the net. Ramble House is reissuing his work in beautiful volumes, I want to own them all!
No writing yet today, did some research. Have two stories on the go right now, both involving historical time periods and semi-obscure myths. Seldom used in recent literature at any rate. One is set in Venice in the 1600's and the other in Poland during World War II. I am happy with the direction of both stories, I feel they are a step up for my writing style, though I think both will fall short of my original vision, simply because at this point in time I don't have the resources to do the kind of research I would like. Lawrence Block says in his books on writing that you basically fake what you don't know, as writers are basically liars anyway, but I like to have some autheticity to the stories. As much as I can put in at any rate. Often telling a story is a way for me to explore a period of time and an area that interest me, so the research is often as interesting or more so than the resulting story.
Also two thirds of the way through Jonathan Carroll's The Land of Laughs, which is a very well written book and very magical. Marvelous writer. Next on the block after this is either Kara Dalkey's Goa which I have dipped into a little already (and it looks marvelous) or Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. (I probably massacred his name). The latter was a best-seller in its day (this leads me to recommend Michael Korda's wonderful book on the bestseller, I'm unsure of the title at the moment, but it is very enlightening).
Well, it is off to cook dinner.
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