Gerbils

A little bit of background story here for everyone at home. Terra and Madeline begged for gerbils, Terra a lot more than Madeline. Finally, after literally an entire weekend of begging, Mom and I caved in to the request. Actually they wanted dwarf hamsters but after a few hours of searching on the Internet, I found the pet qualities of a gerbil to be greater than those of a hamster. I nixed the dwarf hamster request. However, gerbils are not as popular with the laymen out there and it's not easy to find them at pet stores, at least compared to rats, guinea pigs, mice, or hamsters.

The girls got some money from Grancy and Big Daddy for their birthdays and while Grancy visited we went to a few pet stores to find gerbils. The first didn't have gerbils and Terra was devastated. While we were driving away from the store back home to regroup, she convinced herself that I wouldn't take her to any more stores and she wouldn't get a gerbil, and she sobbed. Madeline sobbed, too, but it sounded so half-hearted. I asked, "Madeline, are you crying." She pulled her hands down from her face -- no tears. She laughed. "No, but I'm just trying to fit in back here." Grancy and I could barely hide our laughing.

We found a pair, finally, and got them. I built a cage for them and the girls love putting scrap pieces of wood for them to play. They quickly became proficient at getting out. I put some netting, the kind to cover a screen door, over the top and weighted it down, I meant to get some more wood and build a second tier to the cage this weekend with the girls. It was going to be slick. Mitred edges, panels using plywood, then the second tier would clip on to the first level of the cage. I wanted to get those suckers out of the garage and downstairs so the girls would tend to them better. However, the gerbils gnawed their way out of the screen netting that easily secured them for the last week. To make matters worse, they did this while the garage door was open.

I found one of them under the compartment in the deep freeze that houses the motor. He usually hides there. The other one though . . . gone. Probably out the garage door and hiding in some bushes. Maybe we'll find him, I doubt it.

The girls are taking it well. According to them, it is Madeline's that made the great escape.