Introducing Noodle E. Monkey

Now that finals are over and I am back in York with only the meeces, I finally have the time to post some pictures of our newest rattie aka the rat that Ricky said we were never going to get at Rodent Fest.

Ricky, myself, and a friend from college got up early Saturday morning to take the 2 1/2 hour drive up to Reading, PA for the Spring 2009 Rodent Fest. We got lost, our directions instructing us to drive through the beautiful town of Reading instead of heading north to the Leesport Farmer's Market. We stopped off at a Valero where the woman working there informed us that we, in fact, did not need to go through the entire town and up a mountain, and then commented that we were not the first group of people that morning inquiring about directions. We decided not to tell her what we were doing there to avoid the strange looks.

We arrived at Rodent Fest to the sound of an annoying rock caught up underneath the car and us frustratingly blaring the Mars Volta in order to drown out the sound. As soon as we entered, we were crushed by an overwhelming crowd of people and a space twice as big as the Fall festival. Children were running around everywhere with their new pet mice and rats in Critter Keepers, and breeders and rescues overwhelmed with crowds of people surrounding their rodents. Our friend bolted off to say hello to her friends from the New York Rat Meetup, while I tried to talk to Mike of Mikiodo Mice, who was surrounded by at least 20 people trying to buy his already reserved mice.

So, instead, Ricky and I headed over to Shylah, owner of SNR House of Rats, to see the two ratties our friend had reserved, Angel of Mercy and Nemesis, the former being a very large and silky-furred gray hooded female and the latter a rex chocolate berk. As Ricky entertained himself with some of the big male rats that Shylah's husband let him hold, I set out to find available female mice to add to the Project Runway crew.

In the entire showroom, all but three were reserved.

Kicking myself for not making a reservation before the show, and also surprised, since there were many mice available at the Fall show, I acquired the cards of the mouseries there and decided to wait until the fall to get a few more girls. I then headed over to a rattery from Michigan and fell in love with a four-week old dumbo russian blue patchwork hairless kitten (yes, baby rats are called kittens), and begrudgingly walked away when Ricky beckoned me over to the SNR table. He had suddenly decided that getting a two-pound miniature groundhog of a male rat was the new thing, and while I tried to hold the lazy boy, called up his parents. His mother, who had the watch the girls while he was traveling around Europe for three weeks, balked at the idea of watching boys too, and the idea of getting boys was put on hold for another season.

However, I think we are still very interested in the possibility of having two big lazy fluffballs to watch TV with, so the possibility of males in the future, especially neutered males, is still around.

I then wandered over to Haskell's, where Ricky and I both saw our little Noodle, a dumbo russian blue agouti (same coloration as Peaches) fuzzy hairless, a hyper four-week old kitten that jumped right onto my hand and demanded my warmth. We snatched her up in less than twenty minutes of deliberation. By the end of the show, we had accumulated a new baby for us, two girls from SNR for our friend who couldn't come, and our friend got two babies, a beige and a chocolate rex, to keep her girl Trill company.

Laden with five ratties, we tumbled back into the car and began to drive away, when the annoying rattling from the car turned into a full-out scraping sound. Annoyed, I climbed out of the car and laid on the parking lot and looked underneath the car.

Now, I have had experience with roadkill and dead things, especially on Pennsylvania roads, getting up into cars, but I have never had the experience of seeing something that had obviously crawled up into the car and died fall back out, with certain car parts attached to it. I half-screamed and Ricky dashed out of the car, thinking that the worst has happened ie engine was about to fall out. I picked up a random board laying near the market building and beat the dead skin and fur thing from a loose non-essential covering, but failed to pry the dragging cover off from the car. Withat least a part of the dead animal off, we continued to drive away the screeching car part that finally fell off somewhere in southern PA.

Ricky refuses to take the car to an auto shop. I think part of the dead thing is still in there.

Besides that, we had a wonderful time at Rodent Fest. I caught up with some of the people from the Fall show, pet the skunk, and talked Project Runway for a while. And now, here is Noodle E. Monkey:

Rodent Fest Tomorrow!

Tomorrow begins the journey up to Leesport, PA for a day filled of rats, mice, ferrets, and hopefully a snuggler of a skunk we met during the Fall Rodent Fest.

I just wish I could find out more information about the vendors and breeders who will be there (like the info they had for the fall fest).

Due to the busy end-of-semester workload, I found the link for Mike's adoptees after all of the females had been reserved, which is good and bad, as getting new meeces sounds more and more tempting every day. This means I'll be on the prowl all day making up my mind on more babies. I'm thinking about either a siamese or some kind of rex if I do end up adopting some.

In order to deter the adopting of more rats, I asked a couple friends if they wanted to tag along. We'll be picking up two girls from SNR for my friend Bekah who can't make it, and our friend Olua is coming along to get a friend for Trillian, as Marvin and his poor back legs can't keep up with her anymore during playtime.

Because of time and everything else, I don't have many new pictures, so here's a pick of Mimi on the keyboard for piano lessons:


And the Peach:


And, of course, an old pic of Ron Howard:




Rodent Fest pics to come!

Rattie love during a busy week

Despite the insanity that will soon overwhelm me, the babies continue to do things that make me smile:



I also think that we will be bringing them over to campus more often, as the majority of people have not freaked out over little fluffballs crawling on them.

Two weeks ago, we moved the little girls (Panya and Luffy) in with the big girls (Peaches and the twins), restoring the large cage back to its full height. Pumpkin and Bridget get to stay in their own cage, as Bridget will escape through the other cage's bars no matter how many books we stack on top of it. The meeces know have the little girls cage.






Rodent Fest Countdown: 10 days to go!

Many Pictures! (because I am so late in posting)

Since it is such a beautiful spring day, I decided to get out our Easter baskets and take some pictures of the girls. Ricky has also cuddled Peaches into submission by holding her on her back and giving her tummy scritches.


She stopped squirming!



The famous "durr" face of the Peach.


And EVERYONE managed to sit still enough for me to capture decent still frames during the Easter Basket photo shoot. From youngest to oldest:

Panya


Luffy


Mimi


XingXing


Pumpkin


Bridget


Peaches


Chloe and Leanne (Sweet P was in hiding)



With the craziness of the end of the semester, Ricky and I are looking forward to Rodentfest, which will be in a few weeks. This year it is being held at Leesport, PA on May 2. I hope to catch up with some of the people I met at Rodentfest in the fall, help my friends find some great rats, and maybe get a few more meeces for myself along with the tons of rat goodies we will inevitable be getting for the girls.

Rodent Fest pics in a few weeks!

So so busy

It's been nearly a month since I've updated on anything, which has been due to a ridiculous spring break and the ridiculous amount of work that piles up during the second half of spring semester. This weekend I hope to take some cute pics and video that I'll upload. Here are some quick updates:

Panya has gotten HUGE. Huge. As in she's almost twice the size of Luffy and almost half her age. Ricky and I are amazed at her ability to eat everything in her path and fluff out more every day.

Ever since I began rewarding Pumpkin and Bridget with yogies every time they wandered out of their cage, they've actually been eager to get out and play when everyone else has playtime. The power of a yogie.

Peaches is, of course, still the queenie, despite Pumpkin's attempts to overthrow her adorable dumbo regime.

And....

could it be?

Another baby?

Due to the fiasco of false pregnancies that occured at the beginning of this year, we ended up adopting Panya instead of a girl from Blue Heaven Rattery. Now that BHR will be breeding Stewie (a wonderful dumbo Russian Blue self), I have slowly been convincing Ricky that we need a dumbo blue self. We will see.

Playing with Baby and Volunteering

Panya is determined to snuggle inside Ricky's shirt while he plays Resident Evil 4 on the Wii. Due to the fact he thinks that she, too, is a zombie bent on eating his flesh, she has now taken residence on my shoulder as a snuggly fluff ball against my neck. I love rat heaters. =)

In other (not quite rat related) news, Ricky and I began volunteering at the Kent County Humane Society, which included socializing cats and walking adorable doggies. While the Humane Society is very active in Chestertown, I had never yet visited its location, an easy 5 minute drive on 213, until Sunday afternoon for volunteer orientation. There, we met all of the cats and dogs, and I even got to take out a malnourished Boxer named "Slim Jim," while Ricky walked an energetic Pitbull named "Diesel."


When I visited this morning, I played with cats and walked pups for a few hours, first playing with the quarantine kitties, my favorite being an adorable young male named "Farm Boy," who meowed incessantly (in a cute way) and instantly cuddled up against me.

Next, I walked my favorite pup, Slim Jim the boxer, and was delighted to see that he had acquired a glossy coat and some more flesh on his ribs (even though he was still skinny). He snorted and frolicked during our walk in the snow, but was less than happy when he discovered he was waist deep in a snow drift we stumbled upon. Here's the adorable pup:


My two favorite kitties have to be four-year old males Loki and Thor, the sweetest kitties ever. Loki is super energetic and loves weaving around your legs, while Thor loves tummy rubs. Here are their pics:

Loki


Thor


If you or someone you know is interested in adopting any of these sweeties, please visit the Kent County Humane Society website. They all deserve loving homes!

Playtime on a Snow Day

Over Sunday night Chestertown received almost a foot of snow, ensuring that Ricky and I would not leave the apartment on Monday, instead opting to snuggle with rats (and procrastinate on papers) for the remainder of the day. Introductions with Panya and the girls went smoothly - meaning Pumpkin did not try her annoying humping dominance behavior on the baby. Her and the older girls sniffed and groomed, and now her and Luffy are sharing a cage and cuddling in the cuddle cup on top of the igloo in Luff's cage. Strangely enough, even though she is only around 2 months old, she is already bigger than four month old Luffy. Good thing Luff doesn't realize how small she is. A few minutes ago she pounced on Mimi and demanded a toppling battle (which Mimi of course one, being twice her size).

We also finally brought in the humidifier, resulting in less sneezy rats who have been curling up in the corners of their cages where the majority of steam floats up to create fog on the windows. Pumpkin loves jutting her nose in between the bars and snorting as much as she can, resulting in her being closer to the door of the cage and more playtime. Bridget has been hiding in the hammock-turned-cage-liner, making it a very lumpy lining. She now emerges only to sniff at steam, chow down on grapes, and demand the occasional attention.

Playtime is good for the ratties. =)