T he Mouse, the Vole and the Shrew

You may be familiar with the Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew. If not, you may remember the movie, I think from the 1960’s, by the same name, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I was reading the daily paper the other day and my bride comes in carefully holding a mousetrap out to me, with a little mouse-like animal trapped in it, quite dead. “This doesn’t look like a mouse,” she said.

I looked at its pointed nose and said, “Oh, that’s not a mouse. That is a vole.” That bit of intelligence had originated from my friend, Eddie Williams, who told me a couple of years ago that it might have been voles that ate my sweet potatoes while they were still in the ground. If I remember correctly, he told me that these critters could do a lot of damage in an apple orchard, eating the young roots of apple trees.

A er thinking about my response, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to back up my answer with a little research, or maybe to point me in the right direction if I had been wrong. Google soon set me straight. It was not a vole. It was a shrew. To be speci c, a er examining a library of pictures and facts, it was probably a northern short-tailed shrew.

Every place I checked said that, for its size, the shrew was one tough little cookie when it came to standing its ground. There were pictures and videos of shrews attacking garter snakes and other small animals. He apparently has very small but very sharp teeth, and when he bites whatever he is tackling, he has glands in his mouth that emit a toxin that can paralyze his prey. And his tiny paws looked like the skeleton of human hands, each with 5 appendages. I found him to be an interesting little creature.

Of course, they are not big enough to be a threat to a human, but it was interesting to read about one more critter that has come to love Rappahannock. Maybe we should see if we can’t get some sort of charity drive started so the shrews can have a decent place to live and stay out of my garage.

In other news, I have to tell you I was a little disappointed in what was advertised to be a giant snowfall. Maybe it is for lack of something better to do, or maybe I picked up the habit from my father, who worked on the roads in Rappahannock all his life, but I keep a pretty good eye on the weather. And when I heard the prediction of over 13 inches of snow, well, I was pretty happy. The lady who lives with me, not so much.

Truth is, we haven’t had a decent snowfall in several years. And one before Christmas with over a foot of snow, I don’t know how long it has been since that happened. So, the morning of the predicted monster storm, I am up early, eating my hot oatmeal and getting ready to battle the elements. I had brought in enough wood the day before to get me to about February, and I had my heavy coveralls and gloves and thick stocking cap ready to go.

I was so disappointed I didn’t even measure it, but I would guess we got 3 or 4 inches. The two youngest grandkids thought it was wonderful. They went sledding down through the front yard and over in the firehouse lot. The next day they made a snow woman and sprayed her with colored water so it looked like she had on a pink shirt and a green dress. I was happy for them.

Looking at the calendar I see that by the time you read this Christmas will have been here and gone. I hope you had a good one and a safe one. The desire to be with family and loved ones at Christmas is very strong in a good year, and more so now, during this pandemic. We just need to hold out and hold on a little longer.

Remember the words of Tiny Tim, from Dickens’ Christmas Carol: “God bless us, everyone.”

Happy new year to each and every one of you.