Why I Love Living Here

Out in the country, I mean.

crittertreeThe other day, Charlie and I were sitting out on the back porch, and I saw something going hop, hop hop in the grass by the tree. Here is the tree, with the grass wherein the something was hopping.

I went over to check it out, thinking it was a small toad, since that’s how it was hopping.

It was some kind of mammal. CUTEST! CRITTER! EVER!

I haven’t been able to find out what it was. It had beensy ears. It was round as a butterball, as Mom says. It looked like a reddish-brown mouse head with feet and a long, skinny, bare tail. Mom said I should draw a picture of it, since I didn’t have my camera with me. So here is a picture.

actual size
actual size

I got down near it and looked at it for quite a while. Then it stopped being scared of me and hopped away down the hill toward the woods.

Personally, I think it was some kind of imaginary critter that Jen Christopherson invented to make me happy.

Thank you, Jenna!

UPDATE 12:35PM – Friend Becky Coleman pointed me to this Purdue University publication on Indiana Mammals and I found two critters that looked and sounded like bits of mine:

It was shaped like this Bog Lemmingboglemmingbut it had feet and a tail and movements like this Meadow Jumping Mouse.meadowjumpingmouseMaybe it was a Bog Jumping Meadow Mouming.mycritter‘Cause this is pretty much what it looked like.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character sees something improbable and nobody believes it.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Why I Love Living Here

  1. Jane

    August 22, 2013 at 9:21am

    Cutest critter ever.
    However……it does remind me of illos from one of those classes where your mother can say you aren’t old enough yet to attend. And then you don’t have to! HA! Ignorance is bliss.
    For about a red hot second.

    P.S. How would you even start Googling this litle baby critter? Sperm-shaped mammal?

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      August 22, 2013 at 9:27am

      I tried rodents long tail Indiana, and I got shrews, voles, mice, rats — lots of animals, but none of them looked like this critter.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      August 22, 2013 at 11:10am

      No, definitely not a muskrat. It might possibly have been a Meadow Jumping Mouse. I’ll post pictures in an update to the post.

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  2. Elvira Mistress of Felinity

    August 22, 2013 at 11:11am

    Dear Miss Marian,

    I just wanted to say thank you for the inspiration your prompt gave me this morning!

    I’m Sure There is a Cockroach By Elvira Mistress of Felinity

    (Link below!)

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      August 22, 2013 at 11:58am

      Thank you, Miss Elvira! Katya paddy-pawed over and left you a comment. 🙂

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  3. Jane

    August 23, 2013 at 9:30am

    I like the word Meadow much better than the word Bog, so let’s say this little baby is a Meadow Jumping Mouse Thing.
    So far, nobody here has left me anything like this on my porch!

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      August 23, 2013 at 9:45am

      Good! It would break my heart, to have this little critter left as a trophy. It would be all Fatal Attraction and stuff. ~brrrrrr~

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  4. Jen Christopherson

    March 5, 2014 at 3:55pm

    That does sound like something I would come up with, Katya. However, sad to say, mother nature beat me to it! 🙁 I did think of something, though. It could be the bog thing that for, some reason, doesn’t have front legs. Perhaps a predator ate them, but he/she got away.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      March 5, 2014 at 5:04pm

      This is actually one of MY posts, Jen. ~grin~ If Katya had seen that critter, she probably would have eaten it!

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply

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