Having a pet gray squirrel

I have been rehabilitating squirrels for eleven years. That sounds like I provide a safe judgement free zone for squirrels recovering from addiction, but I actually just raise baby squirrels until they're strong enough to go outdoors and squirrel it up. I enjoy it, but it can be hard to let them go. You get pretty attached to the little beasts. It's not illegal to keep a gray squirrel as a pet in Florida, and so over the years we have acquired a few unreleasable squirrels. Here's a few things I've learned about keeping squirrels over the years.

1. They get into everything.
Squirrels explore like Lewis and Clark after a morning espresso. Everywhere is fair game, and if you look away for more than a few seconds they might disappear. We've lost squirrels under beds, behind bookshelves, and under desks. Every squirrel I've ever had has tried to get onto our ceiling fans. Potted plants are an absolute favorite. One squirrel named Pippin was fond of a large corn plant we kept in the house, he'd climb onto it and scream if I tried to take him off. He bit me rather badly over that corn plant once. Another squirrel, Benedict, was enamored by our Christmas tree, but I never let him get close enough to it to repeat what Pippin had done. Really, if you have anything in your house you don't want a squirrel getting into, you need to watch them like a hawk.

                            When I say they get into everything, that includes your nostrils

2. They are incredibly social.
Squirrels like to be with other squirrels, and if they are by themselves than they want to be with you. They really only have two modes, trying to play with you, and asleep. Once you get them out they want to play, snuggle, bite, climb, and explore, and they want you to be with them. It's exhausting. If you are very lucky and your squirrel is tired you might be able to nestle them in your shirt and pet them into unconsciousness. It is very easy to do this when they are babies, harder when they grow up and their endurance level quadruples.

                                              Thor, wrestling with my Mom's arm.

 Quick tip: squirrels universally love having the side of their neck rubbed, right under their chin. Their head stretches out to the side and they just relax, it's adorable. Here's Thor getting his neck scratched.

3. Wear long sleeves. Squirrels will climb you like they climb a tree, by digging their claws in and hoisting themselves up by the footholds they have created in your flesh. It's painful, and it leaves little scratches all over your skin, unless you wear long sleeves. My mom is a type one diabetic, so injuries take longer to heal for her. Her arms still have faint white crisscrosses all down them from when we didn't bother to wear long sleeves.

4. They like to chew.
It's common for rodents to chew, rats and rabbits are both famous for it, but squirrels are obsessive. I buy them ferret hammocks, they chew through the hanging cords, I keep the babies in plastic sweater boxes when they're little, I can tell they're ready to go into a wire cage when they chew through them. Plastic platforms on their cages grow smaller by the day, and they reduce whole newspapers to confetti. If they find anything interesting their first instinct will be to try and chew it, so keep them away from electronics. I have a laptop with teethmarks on it because I was too slow. Also keep their cages at least a half foot away from furniture.

                                        Our squirrel Sophie happily munches on a stolen saltine

5. They smell like pepper.
Well they do! Every squirrel I've ever picked up and smooched had delightfully spicy smelling fur. Not sure why, but it's quite pleasant.



6. I'm actually repeating something I read before, but it's true. The softest thing in the world is a squirrel belly. They feel like angel wings.



7. They play games.
Squirrels love to wrestle your arms and play bite your fingers. When they are in their cages squirrels are very fond of backflips, and occasionally they make up other games. I had one squirrel that liked to race around the cage, and touch the third corner of the cage every time around.

8. They have crocodilian jaw strength.
I have been bitten a lot. It's not fun, It's pretty obvious that they would have strong jaws for breaking through nuts, but it's still impressive to be on the receiving end of a chomp. I've had squirrels crack all the way through my fingernail without any effort. Scary, and not cool.

Squirrels are adorable little beasts, and when I was little I always wanted to be able to pet one. Now that I have three of them as pets I love them just as much, and I CAN pet them, which is awesome. They are a big responsibility though, they require a large cage, at least a ferret cage, and a lot of attention. They're sassy little things, and no matter how tame they are they may still bite you if you make them mad. Once you've raised a squirrel to adulthood and treated him as a pet it would be VERY hard to reintroduce him to the wild. Just like a domestic dog, he wouldn't know how to live on his own safely. Squirrels can live up to twenty years, so if you have any doubts about whether you'd be able to, or WANT to keep an energetic rodent that long, don't try and keep one as a pet.

Making Galaxy Shoes.

So I like making things. Jewelry, costume parts, scarves and ornaments, all kinds of things. My newest project is a pair of galaxy shoes. The picture below is an example of a beautiful pair from an Etsy shop.


Photo courtesy of  Kristen S. https://www.etsy.com/shop/KristenMakesArt?ref=l2-shopheader-name

There are a lot of tutorials on the web, and I decided I wanted to make a pair. I followed a wonderful youtube video that you should probably just watch instead of reading this post, but you're a nice person and you'll finish reading instead right?

 First I got a cheap white pair of canvas tennis shoes  from Amazon. Looking back they worked well but it was kind of stupid to get white ones. I wanted to start my galaxy shoes with a black background because, well, space, so next time I'll skip the extra step and buy black tennis shoes.

Next I bought fabric paint, brand name Scribbles from Hobby Lobby.

You can buy these from Amazon but they are five dollars a bottle, at Hobby Lobby they are $1.29 a bottle, so I recommend trying to find them in a craft store. My only problem with them is that the dried paint is very grainy and stiff. I probably wouldn't use them on shirts or clothes I like to be bendy. The end result stays very well. I've colored two pairs of shoes with them, and worn a pair for several months at work and the color hasn't chipped or faded. Good stuff.
Besides shoes and fabric paint, the other items you need are as follows:
A sponge brush
Masking tape
A toothbrush
Newspaper
Nasty cup for rinsing out your sponges
a paperclip, pencil, or other small pointy object

Okay, time to actually get started. Lay out some newspaper to prevent painting goo from going everywhere, and then put masking tape securely around the sole of the shoe. The photo below is not mine because I did not have the foresight to take a good picture of the shoes taped.


Photo courtesy of http://www.sparklecollective.com/galaxy-painted-converse/

Next cover that entire freaking shoe with black fabric paint. I squeezed the paint onto a paper plate and then scooped it up on a sponge brush, but by the end I was just applying the paint directly to the sponge. You're going to apply a lot of pressure to some parts of the shoe to get all of it black, and remember to apply paint to the creases around the tape. Also don't forget the tongue of the shoe. Chances are you'll get black paint on the inside of the shoe, but don't sweat it, your foot will cover that up. I left my shoes for about a day after painting them black, but I would imagine they'd be ready in about 1 to 2 hours. The paint dries quick.

Once dried, select the color you'd like to start with. I started with purple. I wanted to use every single color I had. I wanted the toes of the shoes to be especially vibrant, so I painted roughly half the toe in purple, spreading the color around so that it wasn't too thick and brushing around the edges until they were soft, not hard lines. I found working in a kind of circular motion worked best, but anything that colored the shoe was successful in my book.
After purple I painted the rest of the toe in green. While painting leave the edges kind of ragged and cloudy, and when painting in a new color overlap the edges so that the two colors go smoothly into one another. I found leaving the new paint for about ten minutes made them dry enough to paint with a new color.
Something else you want to keep in mind is which colors go together, and which are complementary, that is, which colors mix to become brown or gray. I didn't know which colors were complementary until I took an art class, so here is a helpful color wheel if you are also unfamiliar.


Photo courtesy of http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/color-theory-101-making-complementary-colors-work-for-you-179143

If you look at any color on this wheel, and mix it with the color directly opposite to it, you will get a brown or gray color. Red is complementary to green, blue is complementary to orange, and so on. So with my purple paint, I could easily use a blue, red, or green color next, but I didn't want to use yellow.
My end result starting from the original purple and going around the shoe was purple, red, yellow, green, purple. I colored the toe in blue as well. This particular blue, called a "crystal gel" didn't add a blue color so much as a sheen and a lot of blue sparkles, which I thought were suitably spacelike.
Once that was done I had the baseline, and then I applied some white very lightly in an oval pattern on the toe of the shoe and near the heel to make a galaxy. Make sure to rough the edges of the white out.
Then came the toothbrush. The youtube video I linked to above shows the toothbrush spewing white paint in beautiful flecks across the shoe. I don't know how she did that, I imagine she must have used different paint, or I'm just incompetent, but I couldn't make mine do that. I recommend using the toothbrush anyway though, because once you apply the white paint to the toothbrush and scrape your thumb violently across the bristles, you'll find it does spray some tiny flecks. Not a lot, but enough to make shoe look a little more randomized, like space.
For the big flecks I dipped an unfolded paperclip in white paint and stabbed my shoe at random all over. Remember to add some dots in clusters in some areas, especially the areas of white that are supposed to be galaxies. Here is the finished product.

I find them quite beautiful, and if I make more I might try making the base color red or blue instead of black. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone, and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.