Sometimes the internet brings us something awesome.
This is not my work, but I thought that it was worth sharing.
I read somewhere once that a garden is a kind of map or model of heaven. It's the gardner saying "this is what heaven is like." I always liked that imagery.
Tonight, sleep comes hard, because the damn rats are so loud. You see, there are five rat cages in my bedroom, and between them they have a dozen rats or so in them.
But how did you end up with a dozen rats? I hear you ask. My partner and I adopted them all. They are all domesticated rats who needed a home. Some of them came to use malnourished, mistreated, or abused.
Sometimes we take foster rats. They generally need love and care and they need often need to learn to be handled by humans. Then we send them off to (hopefully) good homes.
Sometimes we take on hospice rats - rats too old or ill to have much chance of being adopted. We give them what we can for as long as they have.
But we have so many rats because we find them hard to give up. Ami spent the first year of her life in a fish-tank, where she was bred so that she could watch her children be fed to snake, one by one. We don't know how many litters that was. Yumi was hit many times with a stick and fed to a snake, but the snake kept turning her down. How many times should one animal be stunned with a club? What kind of a person can feed a domesticated animal to a wild one that he keeps in a cage, and wont eat because even a snake wants to be free? And once you have promised rats like Ami and Yumi that you will take care of them, how could you ever trust someone else to take care of them?
Sylar was raised in a cage all alone, we think, and never handled. He is much too quick to bite at humans. I can't imagine let anyone adopt him. But over the months he is learning to like it here - he rarely bites now, and we understand when he does.
Piglet was also raised alone, it seems. He has taken well to human handling over time, but he cannot get along with other rats - he seems to have missed all rat socialization. And so he needs a lot of attention from us, as he has no rats to cuddle with.
And so on. And just now I was lying in the darkness, wishing the damn rats would stop fighting, chewing, climbing, throwing, jumping, and otherwise making a racket so that I could sleep. i turned on the light and watched them all doing their various night-time games and projects, and I thought, this is my garden. This is my map of heaven, a place where the hungry are fed, where the sick are cared for, where old are comforted and where the lonely are never left alone.
And now I'm going back to bed. And if i cannot sleep for the din, well, it can't be any worse than those damn angels and their incessant harping.
I read somewhere once that a garden is a kind of map or model of heaven. It's the gardner saying "this is what heaven is like." I always liked that imagery.
Tonight, sleep comes hard, because the damn rats are so loud. You see, there are five rat cages in my bedroom, and between them they have a dozen rats or so in them.
But how did you end up with a dozen rats? I hear you ask. My partner and I adopted them all. They are all domesticated rats who needed a home. Some of them came to use malnourished, mistreated, or abused.
Sometimes we take foster rats. They generally need love and care and they need often need to learn to be handled by humans. Then we send them off to (hopefully) good homes.
Sometimes we take on hospice rats - rats too old or ill to have much chance of being adopted. We give them what we can for as long as they have.
But we have so many rats because we find them hard to give up. Ami spent the first year of her life in a fish-tank, where she was bred so that she could watch her children be fed to snake, one by one. We don't know how many litters that was. Yumi was hit many times with a stick and fed to a snake, but the snake kept turning her down. How many times should one animal be stunned with a club? What kind of a person can feed a domesticated animal to a wild one that he keeps in a cage, and wont eat because even a snake wants to be free? And once you have promised rats like Ami and Yumi that you will take care of them, how could you ever trust someone else to take care of them?
Sylar was raised in a cage all alone, we think, and never handled. He is much too quick to bite at humans. I can't imagine let anyone adopt him. But over the months he is learning to like it here - he rarely bites now, and we understand when he does.
Piglet was also raised alone, it seems. He has taken well to human handling over time, but he cannot get along with other rats - he seems to have missed all rat socialization. And so he needs a lot of attention from us, as he has no rats to cuddle with.
And so on. And just now I was lying in the darkness, wishing the damn rats would stop fighting, chewing, climbing, throwing, jumping, and otherwise making a racket so that I could sleep. i turned on the light and watched them all doing their various night-time games and projects, and I thought, this is my garden. This is my map of heaven, a place where the hungry are fed, where the sick are cared for, where old are comforted and where the lonely are never left alone.
And now I'm going back to bed. And if i cannot sleep for the din, well, it can't be any worse than those damn angels and their incessant harping.