Thoughts On A Ladder About The Evolution Of The Mouse

NOTE: I wrote the following using Mozilla Foxfire as usual; but for some reason if you are reading it with Internet Explorer, many of the pictures show up as white boxes with red Xs. I have no idea why. But if you click on the white boxes with red xs, the photo will show up in a larger size. Sorry. I just don't know enough about computers to fix this.

--- jwc

Tuesday I intended to work on the fire history book, but instead I spent much of the day on top of a ladder nailing metal plates up on the roofline of our house to seal holes the mice have gnawed in the siding.

They can’t come inside anymore.

And as a special treat for the ones who may already be inside, I put rat poison in each hole — Welcome to My Magic Kingdom, rat!

Regular blog readers know of my battle with the beasts ravaging our house.

Of course as I worked, I pondered the evolution of the mouse.

I’ve mentioned my love for biology before. Never have I felt any deeper sense of worship than in a biology lab dissecting an earthworm, frog, pig or cat; and once I was privilege to witness the dissection of a human cadaver. To see how living things are put together inspires me to worship the Creator of such wonders.

Therefore when my kids were little and came home with biology assignments from school, I wanted to help them with their homework.

They hated that.

They never believed my explanations of how things work, such as evolution.

The process of evolution is perfectly logical.

For instance, take a mouse.

A mouse scampers around in the fields all summer eating seeds. Come Autumn, the mouse burrows into a deep burrow and goes to sleep. This deep sleep is called hibernation. It takes a long time. As the creature sleeps, it evolves; its hair grows thicker and its tail longer, until come Spring the creature emerges as a rat:

It is the same animal, but over the course of time it has evolved. The rat spends the summer avoiding cats and eating trash. At the approach of another Winter, the rat snuggles in its nest and hibernates. During the long sleep, evolution continues as the fur changes from black to gray and the tail grows longer.

The following Spring it emerges from its den as a Possum:

Anyone can see the resemblance the possum bares to its evolutionary ancestors.

The possum spends Spring and Summer foraging in fruit trees, But come Winter, the happy creature again hibernates and again evolves. Evolution takes a long time but after months of sleep, the possum greets Springtime with even thicker fur which by now has evolved to cover its tail. Yes, every spring a new crop of raccoons emerge from hibernation and evolution:

The raccoon is known in some places as a wash bear from its habit of rinsing anything it eats in water. No wonder. Raccoons will eat anything.

But in the cycle of life, Winter again comes. Mr. Raccoon goes to sleep in a cave and evolves as it sleeps for a long, long time. The animal becomes more complex, it increases in size, and its tail just about disappears. The animal emerges from its den in Spring as a bear:

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Do you see the progress here?

A simple animal becomes more complex and larger as it evolves.

Now bears do certain things in the woods, including eating berries and hunting bee hives. But bears also hibernate deep in the caves of the earth. And as they sleep for a long long time, certain changes take place. Evolution is a complicated process and for reasons no scientist really understands, sometimes a bear will emerge from the cave as a rhinoceros and sometimes as a hippopotamus. In either case, notice how the tail has reverted back to it’s original rat-like appearance.

Of course, even with all the time in the world, not all creatures evolve.

Some degenerate.

Consider the lizard:

Were this creature to hibernate properly it would evolve into a noble Gator and go to the University of Florida where it would eat bulldogs every season.:

But for some reason sometimes evolution goes horribly wrong and perfectly nice lizards degenerate into insurance salesmen:

Such tragic mutations have been known among birds also.

God intended every titmouse to evolve into an eagle:

But this upward progress does not always happen in evolution; sometimes creatures fall. Sometimes they degenerate lower and lower. Sinking below insurance salesman, the once happy titmouse falls:

Yes the avian unwed mother falls into a gutter to pick purses on the street while its victims are distracted by the fatherless offspring.

But there is hope for fallen birds… and for fallen people.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?” Jesus said. “And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven”.

Anyhow, that’s what I thought about up on the ladder sealing possible mouse holes to keep potential hippos or insurance salesmen out of our attic.

Maybe tomorrow I can get back to work on that fire history book.