The Glowing Edge

Tag: animals

  • Olive and the Baby Jesus

    Olive and the Baby Jesus

    This is our family nativity set, dutifully brought out every year, repeatedly organized by miscellaneous boys, periodically misplaced, wholly enjoyed. Joseph is always the most dishevelled looking; once his hair came partially unglued he was never the same. Several animals have disappeared over the years (I personally miss the chicken), and once in a while people mistake the llama/goat/donkey boy for Jesus, but typically the baby Jesus — whom we keep tied to Mary so he doesn’t wander off — is the star of the show.

    Until Olive came to live with us, that is.

    Nativity plus OliveShe loves the nativity barn! She hasn’t actually met the Baby Jesus yet ’cause she keeps sitting on him (hate it when that happens), but I think he’s probably used to this sort of thing. Olive sits on us all the time too. It’s what kittehs do.

    You can see more of Olive and the Baby Jesus on my Flickr; be sure to turn on the titles, cause they’re lol-y.

  • Our Nativity Set

    My favorite is the little goat-boy (bottom left corner, nice necklace). Over the years the goat-boy has been in charge of different animals, but currently he seems to be responsible for the llama, a camel, the donkey, the little black goat plus a little blue one, a stripey rabbit, a red cat, and two ducks (one yellow, one red). This goat-boy stays busy. Some years he gets to be Jesus, which I don’t really believe is a better gig. Personally, I’d stick with goats, which I imagine are much more tractable than humans.

    And Joseph’s hair isn’t faring too well (he’s the pale, startled-looking oriental doll in the center), but I figure that’s just the price of dadhood.

  • A Possum Named Zero

    A Possum Named Zero

    I adored my job at the museum. In addition to all the museum’s design work, I loved hanging out with and helping the animal staff. Because the museum had such an extensive animal collection, we were often the recipients of lost, abandoned, or wounded animals.

    One day a shoebox — well-poked with pencil-sized holes — arrived at the animal staff front door. Inside was a goose egg, and curled up next to the egg was a tiny opossum no bigger than the egg. Rather than part the unlikely pair, we put the egg and possum in a warm spot, kept the possum supplied with grubs and cat food (their natural fodder, along with cigarette butts and anything else they come across: in retrospect, I’m surprised the possum never tried to eat the egg) while we waited for a gosling to hatch.

    Eventually our goose egg was fit only for Templeton and was thrown out, but the possum was becoming quite the attraction, particularly with some of the children’s educational classes, who were delighted with the slow-moving, even-tempered creature and her curling prehensile tail. For convenience, we called the possum Goose Egg, which was later shortened to Zero.

    Most of the animals brought to the front door of the museum were raised and released. I remember a tiny squirrel (which we kept in a birdcage) and numerous birds and turtles. Some animals were permanently injured in some way or couldn’t be rehabilitated; we had a blind screech owl which had been hit by a car, as well as a reticulated python and a bobcat that people had tried to raise as pets. Some animals died before they could be healed; I remember a hummingbird in particular.

    But a few we kept: an incessantly cheerful bluebird, some quail hatched from eggs, a few local fish specimens, and an arthritic raccoon, among others. Zero was one who stayed.

    Photo by rniches