Today was not too cold and I took a walk around Gut Geigen or Homestead Violin to be exact. I arrived at the schreber garden(1) near the big house which is Gut Geigen and there to my right is a pond that is in the meadow. I saw a large hawk circling around and a small figure standing by the pond. The hawk seemed a bit confused because there was a swirl of smoke coming from the figure which was the size of a rather large mouse. I decided to wander over and check things out when suddenly the hawk dived at the figure. The hawk got near its prey when it veered quickly away going off in another direction and in search of another meal that was not to be had at this location. I could not believe my eyes but here was my old friend, Mickey Mole, calmly smoking his pipe and not the least upset over the aborted attack from the hawk. " No problem", said he and calmly folding an antennae like pointed metal stick that had telescoped into a long lance like spear.
He looked at me with a smile and said "Well my old friend, I am glad to see you again".
I was so amazed that Mickey was in Germany I wasn't able to speak for a moment. How did you get here and so close to where I am living. Mickey laughed and said, "even us moles can look at a computer and get on the internet". He was right as there was always an animal underground society parallelling the human one that was invisible to us. He said, " After you left Mapletown, I was missing our daily conversations and the white cat was no longer there to make my life interesting so I air mailed myself here to your address taking care to cut open the box when it was in the Hof post office. That began the problem of finding your Street as I did not have a map. I rode out here to Geigen Gut with the lady and her dog thinking that it must be the in the right direction. She did not notice me slipping into her shopping bag at the post office and voila here I am. I found a convenient den in the ground left by one of my German cousins and I have set up house keeping here near the pond."
Mickey had fashioned a telescoping weapon to protect himself against his enemies by breaking off a radio antennae from and old auto stored in the barn at Gut Geigen. He sharpened the point of the antennae in his workshop and when a hawk came diving at him he stuck one end in the ground and holding the rod pointing skyward was able to mount a formidable defense against attackers from the air. The hawks would be impaled on the weapon if they tried to get close to Mickey. His weapon could be folded up neatly and carried in his coat pocket..Yes he had a coat as he is civilized and can't run around in only his fur in the winter.
of course his burrow was much bigger than a German mole but he had simply made it bigger and was able to borrow wood and other materials from the schreber garden bordering on the pond. there is no one there in winter and Mickey was able to get into one of the houses to borrow tools in order to fashion his furniture which you know is quite unique in the animal world. If you could get into his burrow, you would see that it is just like a human´s house complete with kitchen, bedroom, living room, bath, workroom and study as Mickey is very well read. He has a library of books in the study, now of course in German as it is difficult to find English books here. His workroom has a workbench and tools which he fashions his furniture. He even has a stove to heat the burrow as he is very civilized and when you are civilized you get cold and can't just curl up in some brush or leaves in the burrow to keep warm. He burns the driest of wood so that you would not notice smoke coming out of the ground. He doesn't need much to heat everything as the burrow is very efficient with mud insulation.
At that point it was getting late and I had to get back to my apartment to make dinner including cookies as Gudrun is crazy about desserts. We agreed to meet soon and he promised to tell me about a new bad black cat who was stalking him similar to the white cat in Mapletown. Since Mickey now speaks German we both said "Tschuss" and went our separate ways.. The next chapter we will learn about the black cat if the soap rack in my shower doesn't fall down for the 99th time because the suction cups are no good!!
Footnote (1) A schreber garden is a plot of land just like the one of I have on Schellenberger hill with a small house and garden. see http://picasaweb.google.com/jjclark3/PuttingUpARoofOnTheGardenHouseSummer2007
