Making New Friends (Not for the Squeamish! Maybe Not Safe For Christin?)

Tonight Bill and I took a taxidermy class!!  Four hours to make your own mouse.  It was a fairly small group - there were 6 of us (3 hens, 3 lads) and we sat at a picnic style table in the middle of Box Park - an area in Shoreditch where they have pop up shops and restaurants.  I wish I'd taken a picture of the girl's face who sat at the other end of the table to eat her dinner...until she realized what was happening next to her.

This is my frozen mouse.  They have to be frozen for at least 3 months to ensure that they don't have cooties.  I chose not to ask for details on what could happen to me if it wast frozen 3 months.  Somethings are best ignored.  To work with them you need to warm them up in your hands.

 The first step is making an incision and peeling back the skin without cutting too deeply.  The goal is to keep the body sac intact so it doesn't get all goopy…Bill and I unfortunately pierced our sacs a bit. 

 It was hard to take pictures of every stage because our hands were covered in mouse.  So we're missing a lot of shots of the skinning stage.  You might be happy about that , actually.  It really wasn't as gross as it sounds.  Well, maybe a little.  It's not every Wednesday night you find yourself picking out mouse brains with a tweezer.

When you have the whole skin emptied you wash it.  This is Bill with his wet limp empty mouse.

 This is our class.  I don't know anyone's name.  They were friendly enough but we were all concentrating on our mice rather than chatting.

 These are mouse innards.  (I warned you in the title of the blog! )

 After the skins are washed they are hung on a board and blown dry.  My mouse is #3.

Then you preserve it by brushing on goop and rolling it in powdered borax.

 Stuffing goes in and then wires are inserted into the arms and legs so that you can position them.  

 We glued little black beads into the sockets for eyes and sewed up the belly.  I'm making it sound easy but it actually took quite a bit of effort to get to this point.  At least now it looks like something.

 This one is Bill's.  He's cute, isn't he?  Bill wants to find little glasses and a fedora.

 There were some props available to I brought home a little bathtub, mini bottle of champagne and a doll newspaper.
The headline on the paper is the Kennedy Assassination - - thinking of you Chris and Jana!!  :-)

 We have to wait until they are dry before we can clip off the last of the wire.  But I have to say I'm rather impressed with our final result.  

Now the really hard part - - names!!