• April Rodent Recipe Challenge

Maggie bypasses once . . . 

I'm going to squeak under the wire for the April Rodent Recipe Challenge. It's 11:10 p.m. on April 30, the recipe is made, and Maggie will eat (or not) in the next 50 minutes.

April's ingredient is carrot. I "made"—I use the term loosely, as it took under two minutes to mash together two ingredients—carrot hummus: two garbanzo beans (all I had) and a smidgen of cut-up carrot strips. Mush together with your fingers. It needs oil to look like real hummus, but I don't think hamsters are supposed to eat oil.

. . . and disappears into the tube.

Ordinarily I would place food for dipping—cauliflower, carrots, broccoli—beside it, but I wanted to see if Maggie would eat the hummus. Therefore, it is naked.

I dropped it on the rug when I was turning on the light. Carpet fibers: yum! But Maggie often chews carpet trying to tunnel somewhere; I doubt he'll mind. (Yes, Maggie is a boy.)

Was it because I was so nervous about time that he didn't eat? C'mon, eat it, I was thinking. I moved the plate here and there. C'mon, sweetie, eat!

Maggie didn't bite.