I have a lot on my plate right now… 😉
Tag Archives: cute rat
Mishka’s mad method
A Christmas tail
Greetings, sunshine lovers!
I hope you all had a blessed Christmas 🙂
At the tail end of the Christmas celebrations, I wanted to share with you the poem I wrote for my friends at the South African rat club this year.
A Christmas tail
Imagine with me
if you will
that on that starry night
as shepherds praised
and wise men bowed
to meet the Child of light
between the cattle
through the hay
ran tiny gel-pink feet
and whiskers twitched
and black eyes glowed
to see the Child so sweet
With yellow teeth
and scaly tail
and fur as soft as fleece
a humble rodent
scurried in
to greet the Child of peace
Of course a rat
of all things made
could find its way in there
It scampered close
and sat quite still
to watch the Child so fair
Then bursting into
happy bruxing
to witness Christmas morn
a simple ratty
sang its joy-song
to the King there born.
(Please note: As with all the other content on this site, this poem is copyrighted to me. You may not use it without permission. Please contact me for any re-use requests. Thank you. – Zest)
Goal 53: Get more rat merch
You know, of course, that my beady little eyes are always hunting for any cute rat-themed merchandise 🙂 Well, recently I’ve added two great finds to my ratty collection, which have helped me reach my Goal #53 (that’s in addition to my beautiful rat teapot and Cheddar soft toy). I don’t foresee an end to this collection, but I think I can happily cross off the goal from my list now.
First, I discovered that despite what I think of Halloween, the supposedly scary day can be useful for bring ratties onto the shelves! I unearthed this black plastic rat in the shops as a leftover from Halloween:
It’s really quite pathetic how they tried to make him all beastly, as though you’d ever find a real black rat with red eyes!
I took pity on the poor critter and brought him home. After a good coat of gesso to prime him nicely…
… I painted him to look like Mishka!
What a difference! It just goes to show: put a fancy coat and a cute face on a rat, and suddenly it’s no longer a horrible scary monster 😉
I still have a bit of work to do to finish off the details on his face and tail, but I have already painted a white spot on the back of his head, just like Mishka’s:
(I call that Mishka’s ‘kissy spot’ because when he hangs his head over a ledge or comes within my reach, that’s the spot I kiss to bits!)
I named this plastic rat Loki, because he was meant to be the dark bad guy, but throw in a bit of shape shifting he’s actually just funny! lol
The other item I snatched up was this wonderful metal coat hook:
Isn’t that perfect?! I found it at Kamers vol geskenke in Pretoria, but you could swear it was made for me.
The whole contraption fits over a standard door, with the ratties’ tails forming the hooks:
Call me simple, but this stuff just makes me really, really happy! 😀
Why so quiet, Zest?
Cherry on top
I just had to share this series of shots from a cute moment during Flea’s birthday party. She went for the cherry on top of the biscuit, but didn’t use her hands to grab the biscuit… 🙂