Last Thursday came the event we'd known we needed to do, but also kind of were okay letting slide indefinitely. But the weather Friday was forecast --- and proved to be --- utterly impossible for what we needed, heavy rains not letting up for hours. This would be the day that, at last, we released the deer mice.
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bunnyhugger had scouted out a spot in a not-too-nearby park, one which had a decent amount of shelter from the sky, was not too far from water, was also not too close to the river, and seemed like somewhere we could hide the couple cheap wooden birdhouses that the mice had been using as nests. So we drove them down to the park, walked the quarter-mile-plus to the spot, and then loosely taped cardboard covers over the holes to their houses, where they were definitely holed up waiting for whatever frightening thing we were up to to pass. We wanted the cardboard over the doors so they would have to chew their way out, and so that they would not immediately look at their new surroundings and panic. That's the sort of thing that gets fresh-released rodents killed. Instead, the birdhouses are meant to be stable enough starter lairs, places they can return to for reasonable safety, while they explore the terrain and find a spot that's okay enough.
The locations also turned out to be near altogether too much poison ivy, so when we got home we slathered this stuff that's supposed to repel the ivy's oils and took showers. I've at least not gotten anything noticeable, and while bunnyhugger got a mild case she noticed from her scouting, it hasn't grown worse enough to complain about, at least.
So we set the birdhouses out --- the girls one we had a spot immediately ready; the one with the lone male we actually had to do some last-minute scouting because turned out there were fewer good spots than we expected. (We didn't want them set next to one another in case they don't actually get along.) We set down caches of food, and bowls of water, and even some bits of toilet paper since they so enjoy nesting with that. And set down branches and pieces of bark so that the houses are, if not fully hidden, at least hard for a casual human walking the trail nearby to notice. We know some things from letterboxing that come in useful here.
The disappointing thing is we never got to see the moment the mice emerge into their new lives, ones we hope fulfilling and natural enough to make up for them being much shorter than if we just kept them as pets. bunnyhugger noted that it's possible given the maximum lifespan of deer mice in captivity that they could outlive our pet rabbit, if we had kept them; and, now, that won't happen unless catastrophe strikes Athena.
The next day it rained heavily; possibly the first time the adult mice --- certainly the first time the babies --- experienced it. We hope we've done something that will be good for them.
On to less ambiguous stuff. Join with me now in more explorations of the Cedar Point Museum, roommates with the Merry-Go-Round Museum and filling up slightly more than the Merry-Go-Round Museum's main event space:
1972 Cedar Point-branded calendar --- looks like they closed Labor Day after a buyout day --- and a couple 'credit cards' from the early 90s that aren't explained. I'm going to guess something for park employees to use in the cafeteria or something?
Cedar Point resort newspaper for September 1898, a time when Kennywood was barely a plan for a dining hall.
New York Central club excursion ticket for the park. Also some tickets for specific rides on the right.
A 1910 dance card. The program seems to be alternating waltzes and two-steps, neither dances I could do.
Used to be you could just get anything in glass with the year on it.
Is that one of the horses too valuable to leave on the Frontier Carousel that's since been moved to Dorney Park? No, this is a replica that they have because of reasons. But I spent time looking for evidence.
Trivia: Formosa (Taiwan) adopted a time zone based on the Greenwich meridian in 1896. Source: Time's Pendulum: The Quest to Capture Time --- From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, Jo Ellen Barnett.
Currently Reading: Michigan History, May/June 2026, Editor Erin Bartels.
