The next two days were just a repeat of salting the hide. We removed the old used salt after 24 hours, and replace it new fresh salt. On the last night of curing, we added in some borax. Borax prevents bugs from chewing on the hide, as well as gets rid of any possible decomposing bacteria, so the hide could stay like that for several years before getting tanned. Salted hides still shed very easily, though not as much as a raw hide, so I still had to handle the salted hide with care. 

After the borax treatment, I walked into the garage and was about to start taking out the nails, when I noticed something very peculiar. There were a bunch of tiny imprints and tiny black flakes in the white smooth borax. I also noticed that there was a trail of fur leading out of the largest bullet hole and under the closed garage door, where the was a small gap. I immediately went into panic mode, taking out the nails as quick as possible so I could see how much damage the mice had done to the fur. All I could think was, "Damn it, I should've known curing the hide on the floor was just asking for this!"

My grandpa helped me move the salt and borax off the hide and into a box, before I ran outside with the hide and inspected the fur. It was remarkable, to say the least. The mice had actually done me a favor. They chewed off all of the bloodstained fur, leaving behind the clean fur. There weren't any bald spots or visible damage done to the fur or hide. I took in a deep, long breath, smiled, and said to my grandpa, "I guess God was just helping us out. The mice just took all of the bloody fur and left the good stuff behind."

Still, I decided the hide needed to be suspended off the ground for the rest of the curing process. The fur was still very damp, and needed to dry. However, I didn't have any good ideas on how to do this, but my grandpa did. 

My grandpa had a roll of thin landscaping rope he had no real use for. The garage door track had a couple of holes on either side that my grandpa could funnel the rope through. He threaded the rope through four separate holes in total, so we could still stretch out the hide, but just keep it suspended. It was a genius idea, and actually worked very well. The fur side could dry, and the entire hide could stay away from the mice. It stayed up there for several days.