Summer's heating its way in

May is ending in a few days, and June is making a big fat sizzling entrance, literally. Weather forecast says it will hit 40 degrees celcius this Sun (1st day of June). The mornings and nights are still quite cooling now, so we still had not switched on the aircon. Just hope we won't need to on it anytime soon, which is highly unlikely.

I've already obtained my driving license and have since tried to drive our mpv once - to Bank of America, which is like 5 mins' drive? It's a whole lot different from driving a sedan, and I stepped on the gas pedal a bit too hard and the vehicle jerked a little, scaring the both of us. And the view is different too. Don't think will be driving much anyway.

Ash has returned to work yesterday after a super long weekend (3 days off work since last Fri, which stretches into the weekend and continues on Mon and Tues).

Sparkie is getting along fine, still infested with Giardia, still bleeding, but nevertheless active, especially in the late evenings, around 8pm, when he will run around the living room, playing with his own toys, and playing with us. He is getting his 2nd dose of medication and hopefully, his last.

3 days ago, on Memorial Day, I got the shock of my life. New members were added to our small little family, super duper unexpectedly. This was what happened on that eventful day:

We went out for a little shopping and came home shortly after 4pm, and Ash went to his colleague's place to backup our files into a DVD (my laptop doesn't have a DVD burner). So, alone at home, I decided to check out the hamsters. To my amazement, I saw that there were a tiny speck of blood on one of the hamster's tiny nose (I was still in my lenses then). I then saw the other fella with more blood on her nose, so I reached into the cage to try to grab it in order to check if there is any injury anywhere on her (I thought Sparkie had hurt them somehow or they had been fighting aggresively and injured themselves). As usual, she tried to run away and I managed to grab a small part of her bottom. She struggled a little, so I grabbed harder, but she still managed to get away. I felt somthing moist and warm under my fingers.

Instinctively, I quickly removed my hand from the cage to see what was it that I have came into contact with. To my horror, I saw a little creature covered in blood squirming in the heap of litter. It looked somewhat like a lizard (at least that was what I thought at that very moment), but without a tail. I almost fainted. I thought a lizard (those that we see in houses in Singapore) had fallen into the cage and my little hamsters viciously tried to fight it off, explaining the blood on their noses.

I looked closer and found more of them in the litter. That was when I realised that one of them had just given birth. Oh, so that was why I had found one of them getting chubby recently. Frantically, I called Ash on his cell, but no answer. So, out of desperation, I called Jaslin (the wife with the Shi Tzu), and she told me to leave them alone. I asked if I should seperate the babies from the adults because I heard from a friend that the mother will eat her babies if you don't seperate them. She said no, because the babies need their mother's milk.

Then, we started discussing how the babies have came about, because according to the pet store, both the hamsters I bought are supposed to be females. So she asked if it's possible that I brought home a pregnant one. I thought it over, and it seemed impossible too because back at the pet store, the hamsters in the cage that the 2 hamsters were grabbed from are all females (at least that's what the label outside the cage reads). Furthermore, it has been around 5 months since I owned them (the gestation period is only about 20 days). So the only possibility is that one of them is actually a male.

Later in the evening, she came over with her husband for dinner along with another of Ash's colleague. After dinner, they were observing the hamsters and they suggest that I separate the male because it seemed like he was trying to eat them up. Thus begins the mission - to grab the 2 adults with a plastic bag (to prevent human scent from coming into contact with the babies) and put them in the fish tank which I've bought to contain them when I clean their cage, and keep the male in the tank.

Now, the male is all alone in the fish tank. I'm thinking of getting another cage since I will have to seperate the males from the females once the babies are weaned. Speaking of the babies, I haven't seen them since the day I seperated their daddy. I wonder if the mum had eaten them up. Guess I'll just have to observe them over the next few days.