I began my morning by finally working with Sweetheart on jumping. I turned over two crab baskets and put some poles over them, then made the proper poles on the ground leading up to the jump (to "prep" her). I have been working with her on the ground but have never ridden her over one before. So today we walked through everything at a walk and then moved to a trot (she tried to dodge the jump just about every time), and I then discovered that the crab baskets were definitely much shorter than the construction barrel set-up I had been using, and thus she could just lift her legs and super high trot through/over them. After about an hour of this I got her at a fast enough trot to get one jump out of her. It wasn't alot, but it was something!
I went out with doc at noon today as well. We started with a re-check on the foal with the crooked legs. He had been turned out and so I got to see him running around like an adorable little... well, foal. :) His right front leg had straightened completely through the treatments, but his left front leg was still just slightly crooked. Doc suggested that she wait a couple more weeks to see if it would straighten out on it's own, but he also gave her a couple of other options- including knee braces for foals (something new that I am sure is quite interesting- I can't imagine how much damage and dirt a foal puts on them), or surgery to lengthen the tendon (which would have to be done by an actual surgeon- this isn't something that Doc would do in field).
Our second call was... interesting. There were two women and 6 horses at the barn, all Morgans. One of the women is in her thirties and is a farrier, the other in her 60's or 70's. The call was originally just for a check on the animals, but before we left we got a call that they thought one of their horse's was colicking, so we had packed the ultrasound just in case. We started out looking at that horse, and neither Doc nor I could see a reason that the owners thought the horse was colicking... except that it was slobbering. Slobbering this time of year is very common because of clover, which irritates the salivary glands. But this horse had colicked a couple of weeks ago, and Doc had gone to the call and took care of the horse, so we wanted to make sure everything was okay. Temp was normal, mucous membranes were normal, and upon palpation (Doc sticking his arm up the horse's butt and feeling the internal structures), everything seemed fine- though the horse had slightly looser than normal stool. Doc gave the horse an injection of Buscopan, a smooth muscle relaxer, to help with any possible discomfort she was having. The owner then went on a rant about how the other woman (the younger one) had told her that the horse (who had been laminitic) had cushing's because his ring bands on his feet weren't the right color. Doc very kindly explained to her that due to the laminitis the horse very likely would not have normal feet, and that clinically the horse had no signs. However, by the end of our exam, we had taken blood to test for cushing's, lyme's, a fibrinogen and an endogenous ACTH test.
We started to examine a second horse, a large gelding, and the owner informed us that he hadn't had any shots in six years. He had snot crusted around his nostrils and had been coughing. Doc put a plastic glove over his nose to induce him to breathe deeply, and found that he had some fluid brewing in his lungs. As we walked back to the truck to get a shot of bute for the poor fellow, Doc informed me that the women did not vaccinate their horses on a regular basis... and he suspected that the gelding had a case of flu-rhino- something we regularly vaccinate horses for. Of course then the women wanted more blood tests on the gelding, and a flu-rhino shot for the most expensive horse on the property (a stud). This is what happens when you don't vaccinate!! We ended up doing even more blood tests on the other horses in the barn, because the owners suspected everything from EPM, tapeworms, and lymes to god only knows what for a slight lethargy in their horse. Good for business, but I very highly doubt that many of those tests will come back positive... though I could be wrong. It is very true that clients know their horses better than a vet that comes out once every couple of months, but these people very much struck me as horse hypochondriacs.
Finally we made it out to our last call, and I was overjoyed to find that I knew the two horses at the farm. They were new clients and they had called us about a hernia on the yearling. As we walked up to the barn, they told me that the horses had just been adopted from the SPCA- a place I volunteer at on a regular basis during the semester. These two horses, Nike and Carrie, I knew quite well- I was there the morning they and 19 other babies were brought in to the SPCA in November after a seizure. 3 of them were in such bad condition that they didn't make it. The others became a community-unifier, and many people from all over the county, including many of the pre-vet kids from Gettysburg, came out to help take care of and train them. They were finally put up for adoption about a month ago and I was so happy to see what a nice place they were at, and how absolutely wonderful they looked. Nike was always one of my favorites, and Carrie, the lead mare who bit me at one point and almost kicked the crap out of me, seemed to have settled down with a little consistency in her life. Both of them seemed in very good hands. The owners I believe are going to try to race the two of them once they get their papers in order, but weren't particularly worried about it- they just wanted to do it as a lark, and if it didn't work out or the horses didn't like it, they were just going to turn them into riding pleasure horses. It was great to see them, and it even brought tears to my eyes to see them gallop off in the rain storm (which of course came out of nowhere as we were taking blood and soaked all four of us before we could get inside). I am hoping to see them again soon when we do the hernia surgery!
I was glad to get back home and change into dry clothes, then headed out for dinner with Jared. It was definitely a good day!
~Rich With Life~
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Regression
These are the days that I remember why nobody in the world besides me would want my brat of a horse. I decided to take her out for a nice, easy ride after working her pretty hard all week. I figured she deserved it after her pristine behavioral report, and I was in the mood for a quiet stroll. So instead of heading into the hay field for circles, figure eights and gait transitions, I pointed her nose up the lane.
Five feet later, she put on the brakes and refused to move a foot until I hollered at her and slammed my heels into her side. We jolt into motion, then stop ten feet later. I try a different tactic, and make her circle (something she will always do), then continue forward. Success! Ten feet later we stop again... and so it goes. She refuses to walk on the gravel, refuses to walk on the grass, refuses to walk on the pavement, refuses to walk, period! We go backwards, sideways, in circles to the left and to right. I holler, I cajole, I beg. I even smacked her with the reins. Slowly, so slowly, we made our way up the lane. She got sweatier and sweatier, and very worked up and nervous, and I got more and more frustrated (which I'm sure did not help the situation).
Finally she had enough, did not want to go any farther, and tried to grab her head and bolt back to the barn. She failed. Then tried to pop upwards and get me off. So then we did circles and figure eights at a trot for fifteen minutes until both of us were exhausted, I walked her ten feet farther up the lane just for the necessity of making her do it, and we headed back down to the farm (without a single stop of course). I then made her do more circles and figure eights and finally go back to the barn a different way than usual. It isn't like we haven't been up that lane a thousand times in the past few years- we have. Today however, that lane was one big, bad obstacle.
Looks like for now I might be stuck on the farm.
~Rich With Life~
Five feet later, she put on the brakes and refused to move a foot until I hollered at her and slammed my heels into her side. We jolt into motion, then stop ten feet later. I try a different tactic, and make her circle (something she will always do), then continue forward. Success! Ten feet later we stop again... and so it goes. She refuses to walk on the gravel, refuses to walk on the grass, refuses to walk on the pavement, refuses to walk, period! We go backwards, sideways, in circles to the left and to right. I holler, I cajole, I beg. I even smacked her with the reins. Slowly, so slowly, we made our way up the lane. She got sweatier and sweatier, and very worked up and nervous, and I got more and more frustrated (which I'm sure did not help the situation).
Finally she had enough, did not want to go any farther, and tried to grab her head and bolt back to the barn. She failed. Then tried to pop upwards and get me off. So then we did circles and figure eights at a trot for fifteen minutes until both of us were exhausted, I walked her ten feet farther up the lane just for the necessity of making her do it, and we headed back down to the farm (without a single stop of course). I then made her do more circles and figure eights and finally go back to the barn a different way than usual. It isn't like we haven't been up that lane a thousand times in the past few years- we have. Today however, that lane was one big, bad obstacle.
Looks like for now I might be stuck on the farm.
~Rich With Life~
Friday, July 27, 2012
Catch the Donkey Already!
So I started my morning by feeding 15 horses. That's right, 15. My two, the farm I am pet sitting at (6) and Dr. Wiles' 6 horses- whew! We got out on the road around nine thirty for appointments, starting to the North of the office and moving steadily South throughout the day. We began by heading up to littlestown for a re-check on a foot abscess for a donkey. Now we always call people and give them at least a half hour notice- the reasoning being that they can catch the animal and have it secured and waiting when we get there. This actually happens about half the time... the rest of the time we get there and have to wait for the owners to find the animal, chase the animal, maybe catch the animal and drag it to us. This is why vets always run late! This was the case today- The two donkeys did not want to be caught, especially the one with the foot abscess. He had been having his bandage redone every couple of days by the owner and he was not having any of it. So Doc, Ms. S and I stood in the corner waiting while the 50 year old man and his 20 something son chased around two miniature donkeys, while their australian sheep dog chased the donkeys (and was chased by the donkeys in turn) in the opposite direction. 15 minutes later they finally dragged him to us, one man on the head, the other pushing from behind. Not the most graceful entry.
Upon re-examining the foot, Doc found yet another abscess developing on the opposite corner of the hoof than the one currently being treated. Hoof abscesses are basically little pockets of bacteria that normally get jammed up right inside the hoof wall,whether due to founder issues, bad cracks or sharp objects, and the pocket continues to grow and smell and ooze, becoming very painful and tender. Sometimes they will come out the top of the horses hoof around the coronary band before an owner notices them; sometimes they will be really shallow and just forming and the horse will be dead lame. It all depends on the horse's sensitivity. Doc excavates them with a bone curette, cleans them out, and bandages the hoof to prevent more bacteria and dirt from getting in.
Once we finished with the donkey, we headed back to the farm with the foal to give it another dose of oxytetracycline. It seemed to be doing fine, with no bad side effects, though we took some blood to make sure all it's levels were stable. Our next appointment was two really nice older women who have a barn together, and a total of 4 horses. They all just needed routine floats, sheath cleanings and vaccinations, so we took care of that. The women were a hoot and kept all of us laughing with their ribald comments and amusing notes about their horses and each other. They are definitely the best of friends with a shared passion for riding. That was the longest chunk of our time, taking about 2.5 hours total to get the four of them done.
Finally we headed to do a re-check on a horse that had been put on a long-term painkiller, Previcox. She has very bad arthritis and is almost always lame and stiff, just from old age and the fact that she had been worked hard in her early days. After about a week on the Previcox she looked like an entirely different horse, moving much better with the stress and worry taken from her face (yes, horses show stress and worry on their faces). One of the things you have to be careful with with Previcox is that it is made for dogs, but since it is much less expensive than Equiox (made for horses), many people choose it. A big side effect is liver failure, and Doc informed me that an easy way to tell if a horse is having liver problems, especially a paint horse, is that they will burn in the sun and their white spots will become pinkish. Photosensitivity. Cool, huh?
Three eggs consistently now!
~Rich With Life~
Upon re-examining the foot, Doc found yet another abscess developing on the opposite corner of the hoof than the one currently being treated. Hoof abscesses are basically little pockets of bacteria that normally get jammed up right inside the hoof wall,whether due to founder issues, bad cracks or sharp objects, and the pocket continues to grow and smell and ooze, becoming very painful and tender. Sometimes they will come out the top of the horses hoof around the coronary band before an owner notices them; sometimes they will be really shallow and just forming and the horse will be dead lame. It all depends on the horse's sensitivity. Doc excavates them with a bone curette, cleans them out, and bandages the hoof to prevent more bacteria and dirt from getting in.
Once we finished with the donkey, we headed back to the farm with the foal to give it another dose of oxytetracycline. It seemed to be doing fine, with no bad side effects, though we took some blood to make sure all it's levels were stable. Our next appointment was two really nice older women who have a barn together, and a total of 4 horses. They all just needed routine floats, sheath cleanings and vaccinations, so we took care of that. The women were a hoot and kept all of us laughing with their ribald comments and amusing notes about their horses and each other. They are definitely the best of friends with a shared passion for riding. That was the longest chunk of our time, taking about 2.5 hours total to get the four of them done.
Finally we headed to do a re-check on a horse that had been put on a long-term painkiller, Previcox. She has very bad arthritis and is almost always lame and stiff, just from old age and the fact that she had been worked hard in her early days. After about a week on the Previcox she looked like an entirely different horse, moving much better with the stress and worry taken from her face (yes, horses show stress and worry on their faces). One of the things you have to be careful with with Previcox is that it is made for dogs, but since it is much less expensive than Equiox (made for horses), many people choose it. A big side effect is liver failure, and Doc informed me that an easy way to tell if a horse is having liver problems, especially a paint horse, is that they will burn in the sun and their white spots will become pinkish. Photosensitivity. Cool, huh?
Three eggs consistently now!
~Rich With Life~
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Crooked Legs
Only one appointment on the schedule for today with Doc. We headed out to see a foal that belonged to a new client. The client had been having problems with her usual vet and decided to switch to Doc. Driving up, all I could see out front of the two-horse barn was one really short, really fat pygmy goat standing guard- collar included. It baa-ed ferociously at me when I exited the truck.
The foal was perhaps the cutest foal I have ever seen; palomino, curly coat, baby mannerisms to the t, and very sweet. It was the mare's fourth baby- I think she was a small draft breed, very docile. Her foal has contracted tendons, and thus crooked legs. In the case of this cute little fellow, it just appeared to be his front legs that looked badly off, mostly around the knees. Doc informed me that the foal had originally been a possible septic case, and so he has been a bit of a problem child for the owner. His GGT levels (an enzyme associated with the liver) were high, which was attributed to the early infections.
To straighten out a foal's legs, a variety of methods can be tried- one of these is the administration of oxytetracycline. I remember when I rode along with a vet at a large standardbred breeding farm, they surgically put in wires and screws to straighten the horse's legs by focusing on the growth plate. Oxytetracycline is a little bit easier in that it is an injection. It bonds with calcium, allowing the tendons to relax and the legs to stretch and properly align. However, it must be used fairly early in a foal's development or else all it does is to relax the tendons, but not in any significant way to affect the structure of the horse's legs. This foal was at the very far end of that timetable- he had apparently been given one dose early on by the previous vet, but they had decided not to continue with the treatment for some reason (you normally give a small diluted dose once a day over a period of 3 days or so). Doc decided to go ahead and try the three day series and see if any improvement could be made.
So I got the butt end of the foal, my hand gripping the tail, as the owner got the head. We wrestled the baby into a corner and held him still while Doc gave the IV. He was actually quite good for a little guy, though he did get poked a couple times since every jerk of his head pulled the needle out of where it needed to be. It will be very interesting to see if there is improvement, and if so, how much- it amazes me how specific we can be with treatments and the drugs that are available. It is also terrifying to realize how much there is to learn! Doc can specifically tell me how every single drug he gives works within the body- it is an incredible amount of knowledge.
We will go back tomorrow and Saturday to give him another small dose, and we will take blood every day to monitor all of his blood chemistry and make sure everything looks okay. Tomorrow should be a full day- appointments from 10 am till 5 pm, so I am sure I will have lots to report!
Went for another ride this morning on Sweets- English-style this time so I could trot the fat out of her without having to worry about posting into the pommel. I did better than I expected after having been out of an English saddle for about 5 months now- but I know I will hurt tomorrow from the posting. No hissy fits today or bucking, though she was full of spunk once I got her going.
The foal was perhaps the cutest foal I have ever seen; palomino, curly coat, baby mannerisms to the t, and very sweet. It was the mare's fourth baby- I think she was a small draft breed, very docile. Her foal has contracted tendons, and thus crooked legs. In the case of this cute little fellow, it just appeared to be his front legs that looked badly off, mostly around the knees. Doc informed me that the foal had originally been a possible septic case, and so he has been a bit of a problem child for the owner. His GGT levels (an enzyme associated with the liver) were high, which was attributed to the early infections.
To straighten out a foal's legs, a variety of methods can be tried- one of these is the administration of oxytetracycline. I remember when I rode along with a vet at a large standardbred breeding farm, they surgically put in wires and screws to straighten the horse's legs by focusing on the growth plate. Oxytetracycline is a little bit easier in that it is an injection. It bonds with calcium, allowing the tendons to relax and the legs to stretch and properly align. However, it must be used fairly early in a foal's development or else all it does is to relax the tendons, but not in any significant way to affect the structure of the horse's legs. This foal was at the very far end of that timetable- he had apparently been given one dose early on by the previous vet, but they had decided not to continue with the treatment for some reason (you normally give a small diluted dose once a day over a period of 3 days or so). Doc decided to go ahead and try the three day series and see if any improvement could be made.
So I got the butt end of the foal, my hand gripping the tail, as the owner got the head. We wrestled the baby into a corner and held him still while Doc gave the IV. He was actually quite good for a little guy, though he did get poked a couple times since every jerk of his head pulled the needle out of where it needed to be. It will be very interesting to see if there is improvement, and if so, how much- it amazes me how specific we can be with treatments and the drugs that are available. It is also terrifying to realize how much there is to learn! Doc can specifically tell me how every single drug he gives works within the body- it is an incredible amount of knowledge.
We will go back tomorrow and Saturday to give him another small dose, and we will take blood every day to monitor all of his blood chemistry and make sure everything looks okay. Tomorrow should be a full day- appointments from 10 am till 5 pm, so I am sure I will have lots to report!
Went for another ride this morning on Sweets- English-style this time so I could trot the fat out of her without having to worry about posting into the pommel. I did better than I expected after having been out of an English saddle for about 5 months now- but I know I will hurt tomorrow from the posting. No hissy fits today or bucking, though she was full of spunk once I got her going.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
No Crabbing Today!
We were supposed to go crabbing this morning, but my grandfather got a call from one of his buddies who was out on the West River yesterday, and by 9 o'clock he only had 1/2 of a bushel and 30 peelers. Since that is a terrible catch that barely covers expenses, we decided to wait another week or so, though he promised me he would make sure we get out on the water before I head back to school in mid-August. I love going out crabbing on the bay; some of my favorite memories are of being out on the water as the sun rises, dipping crabs off of a trot line.
My day now freed up and, starting to get restless once again, I gave Doc a call and was supposed to head out with him at noon... and then I got a call that the farrier needed to reschedule for today. Of course the only appointment Doc had today happened to be at the only time the farrier could come. So I'm back to being restless. : ( Hopefully out with Doc tomorrow, though as of this morning he had no calls scheduled.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Pasture Work
I spent most of yesterday out working to get my fields back in shape- am hoping to bring my horse (and my mom's) back over this evening. I miss having her there to ride and just the simply day-to-day husbandry. So I spent a couple hours weedwhacking and fixing the fences yesterday (no easy task as my weak arms protest the entire time). Jared mowed my grandfather's grass for him while I worked in the fields, and then we all went out to lunch (after I took a shower!).
We then took a load of furniture over to my brother's apartment and stayed to talk to my grandmother for a little while. She was on her A-game yesterday and spent a lot of time talking about pear juice, milk allergies and red-40 allergies, and the amazing (and dead) Dr. Wellover- the best doctor who ever lived according to her. She gets on these rants and no matter how many times you have heard it, she will tell you the entire story start to finish, even if you are the one the story is about! She isn't senile, just very lonely I think. Still, after about an hour it is very difficult to portray rapt attention.
I am farm sitting this week for 6 horses and 2 dogs. I really enjoy the farm and the animals there- it is very "easy" compared to some farms, and as their property backs up to my grandfathers, it is very close as well. The horses: Q-baby, Fiona, Sonata, Dior, Spy and Fortune are all gorgeous lookers. Q-baby came from Germany and is a yearling, and Spy is also a yearling (son to Fiona). Both of them have really good heads on their shoulders. Sonata (Fiona's daughter/Spy's sister) is a bit of a butt sometimes for she has a biting issue and a rather bad attitude, but we always work it out and generally by the end of the week she will have stopped being too bad of a brat. I guess I have been farm sitting for them for over 3 years now, so the horses all know me. Excitingly, the owner of the farm brought up the possibility of maybe having me help out doing some elementary show halter handling of Q-baby, and Dior's owner also mentioned she might have me start exercising Dior (which ought to be interesting since I ride primarily Western and Dior is a dressage/hunter horse). Still, the more riding the better- and if I can get paid to do it I will be ecstatic!
So I am back out to the pastures this morning to finish up prepping for the girls, and then will hopefully be getting them around three this afternoon.
The chickens gave us three eggs yesterday!
We then took a load of furniture over to my brother's apartment and stayed to talk to my grandmother for a little while. She was on her A-game yesterday and spent a lot of time talking about pear juice, milk allergies and red-40 allergies, and the amazing (and dead) Dr. Wellover- the best doctor who ever lived according to her. She gets on these rants and no matter how many times you have heard it, she will tell you the entire story start to finish, even if you are the one the story is about! She isn't senile, just very lonely I think. Still, after about an hour it is very difficult to portray rapt attention.
I am farm sitting this week for 6 horses and 2 dogs. I really enjoy the farm and the animals there- it is very "easy" compared to some farms, and as their property backs up to my grandfathers, it is very close as well. The horses: Q-baby, Fiona, Sonata, Dior, Spy and Fortune are all gorgeous lookers. Q-baby came from Germany and is a yearling, and Spy is also a yearling (son to Fiona). Both of them have really good heads on their shoulders. Sonata (Fiona's daughter/Spy's sister) is a bit of a butt sometimes for she has a biting issue and a rather bad attitude, but we always work it out and generally by the end of the week she will have stopped being too bad of a brat. I guess I have been farm sitting for them for over 3 years now, so the horses all know me. Excitingly, the owner of the farm brought up the possibility of maybe having me help out doing some elementary show halter handling of Q-baby, and Dior's owner also mentioned she might have me start exercising Dior (which ought to be interesting since I ride primarily Western and Dior is a dressage/hunter horse). Still, the more riding the better- and if I can get paid to do it I will be ecstatic!
So I am back out to the pastures this morning to finish up prepping for the girls, and then will hopefully be getting them around three this afternoon.
The chickens gave us three eggs yesterday!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Home Sweet Home
The trip yesterday was long, but I made it back home just fine. I told Jared that I was not going to be home until about three in the afternoon- so he was quite surprised when I showed up at my brothers place (where Jared spends a lot of his time) around noon! Dale, Jared and I went to Olive Garden for lunch, and then I headed home to see my new furniture.
The house was a little messy (Jared's version of cleaning is a LOT different than mine), so I had to go on a multi-hour cleaning spell. After some scrubbing and rearranging I was quite happy with things though, and me and Jared continued to clean out the garage full of furniture today. My new couch is awesome, and my basement now has my own personal library going on, complete with cozy armchairs, awesome shag carpet and coffee table. It is going to take some time getting used to all the new stuff, but it is really kind of cool to be able to arrange everything how I like it and know that no one will move it!
My cats have been very glad to have me back... all of them have been following me around the house, cuddling and purring. The chickens are great- the new acquisitions are very friendly, though Homer the rooster attacked me the second I walked into the coop. I guess he thinks I am a bad hen or something... Not sure what to do about him.
Starting to farm sit this evening- 6 horses and 2 dogs for a week, so that should definitely help re-boost the bank account. I also need to get paid for the pet-sitting I did before I left for NC. I called last night and the husband sounded really confused (I have never met him, only his wife).
Headed to dinner with my mom and her husband this evening (I get to see my pony!). Monday and Tuesday I need to get my pastures back in order to get the horses back over here, Wednesday I am going crabbing with my grandfather, and then hopefully I will be back to riding along with Doc on Thursday or Friday!
The house was a little messy (Jared's version of cleaning is a LOT different than mine), so I had to go on a multi-hour cleaning spell. After some scrubbing and rearranging I was quite happy with things though, and me and Jared continued to clean out the garage full of furniture today. My new couch is awesome, and my basement now has my own personal library going on, complete with cozy armchairs, awesome shag carpet and coffee table. It is going to take some time getting used to all the new stuff, but it is really kind of cool to be able to arrange everything how I like it and know that no one will move it!
My cats have been very glad to have me back... all of them have been following me around the house, cuddling and purring. The chickens are great- the new acquisitions are very friendly, though Homer the rooster attacked me the second I walked into the coop. I guess he thinks I am a bad hen or something... Not sure what to do about him.
Starting to farm sit this evening- 6 horses and 2 dogs for a week, so that should definitely help re-boost the bank account. I also need to get paid for the pet-sitting I did before I left for NC. I called last night and the husband sounded really confused (I have never met him, only his wife).
Headed to dinner with my mom and her husband this evening (I get to see my pony!). Monday and Tuesday I need to get my pastures back in order to get the horses back over here, Wednesday I am going crabbing with my grandfather, and then hopefully I will be back to riding along with Doc on Thursday or Friday!
Friday, July 20, 2012
One Cow Highway
From the safety and security of the yellow office room at Serenity, I greet you.
Today was a bittersweet day that began and ended well (as most days do). Lauren and Ed basically let me do whatever I wanted to today... so I went on that tour finally, and learned about the species-specifics, as well as the back stories of many of the animals. From sideshows at haunted houses, house pets, hotel attractions and picture ops, many of their stories were heartbreaking. They also made me appreciate the rescue and what they do so well even more than I already had. After my tour I cleaned Emerson and Fenimore's pool, then took an early lunch, did some enrichment and (because it was my last day and the keeper's are awesome), we played tiger tug of war. Yes, you did read that correctly.
Saying goodbye to everyone was difficult... the animals as much as the people. I will miss all of the interns- Josh with his sense of humor and leadership, Rachel's bubbly personality, Melanie's never-flinching attitude, Kristin's kindness and dedication, and John's quiet togetherness. The keepers I will miss as well, and of course my three roommates. I spent my last half hour at the rescue saying my tearful goodbyes to the cats before a storm rolled up and sent us all home.
Today was a bittersweet day that began and ended well (as most days do). Lauren and Ed basically let me do whatever I wanted to today... so I went on that tour finally, and learned about the species-specifics, as well as the back stories of many of the animals. From sideshows at haunted houses, house pets, hotel attractions and picture ops, many of their stories were heartbreaking. They also made me appreciate the rescue and what they do so well even more than I already had. After my tour I cleaned Emerson and Fenimore's pool, then took an early lunch, did some enrichment and (because it was my last day and the keeper's are awesome), we played tiger tug of war. Yes, you did read that correctly.
Lenore started out at CTR many years ago as an intern, and her project during the program was a new enrichment for the big cats. This involved a metal plate with a hole through it, and one really thick, really strong rope. The cats are shifted out of the enclosure, the rope put through the hole and knotted on both sides, the cats are let back in, and we tug enticingly on the rope until they decide to kill it... Then it is just 3 interns/externs/volunteers versus 1 big tiger. Max and Kizmet both took a turn on the rope (and both won), and we all had a blast doing it. I didn't even know that such a thing existed, and Ed hadn't seen it used since he had become a keeper, but Josh had found out about it somehow and brought it up today, and Ed and Lauren gave in to our enthusiasm. I had a really great picture... but of course my phone decided to delete it. I do have one of just the rope (no tigers), but as I don't get cell service here and didn't send it to my email earlier, it won't make an appearance until the morrow.
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| Albert the Kinkajou |
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| My favorite bobcat, Collins |
Saying goodbye to everyone was difficult... the animals as much as the people. I will miss all of the interns- Josh with his sense of humor and leadership, Rachel's bubbly personality, Melanie's never-flinching attitude, Kristin's kindness and dedication, and John's quiet togetherness. The keepers I will miss as well, and of course my three roommates. I spent my last half hour at the rescue saying my tearful goodbyes to the cats before a storm rolled up and sent us all home.
And so I got on the road, an extra case of Cheerwine in car, and began the three hour drive to Virginia. I encountered a very bad storm, a lot of very bad drivers, and a random Holstein eating freely on the side of the road (in Virginia of course).
Tomorrow I am headed the six hour drive back home. I am sure my blogs won't be quite so exciting anymore, no tigers or lions or leopards, but I will continue to write about my experiences in life and on the path to veterinary medicine for as long as people want to read them!
-Melissa-
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Your Friendly Neighborhood Construction Worker
I cannot wait to sleep in a bed again. I mean a real bed- not the couch, the floor, some cushions. Being 5' 9 1/2" and sleeping on a 5' couch is totally fine for all of four days... after that it becomes torture, literally. I spent my night sleeping in fits, interrupted by charlie horse's and shin splints. I woke up with my legs aching from the muscle spasms all night, and I proceeded to torture my legs all day.
The day began innocently enough at CTR. I was handed a bin of fruits and veggies and was given the task of sorting them into bins by species (is that the right word?). Easy enough, and I got to hang out in the very pleasant cooler. I then waited around for a volunteer to arrive until nine- she was supposed to be my partner throughout the morning. Turns out she had called out and word just didn't get around to the keepers... So I then got the task of mixing and pouring concrete by myself. Kizzy, Max and Christian had got a new platform and the bottom of the poles needed to be solidified into the ground. Their enclosure is on "Tiger Hill" at the top of the compound... the 80 lb bags of cement, wheelbarrow and shovel were on the far end of the compound. Needless to say, I had to bring them up. Uphill. The entire way.
One pole got fixed into the ground, and I then got a call to head down to the new enclosure to help raise panels again. Being the monkey that I am, I was up and down the ladders helping weave fences together and get everything set up...for two hours. By this time I was hot, irritated and hungry, and I just really, really wanted to get the second pole fixed into the ground. It really only takes maybe 10 minutes to get concrete mixed and poured, and it had so far taken me over three hours! With an hour to spare till lunch I finally got back, got my cement poured and all my tools cleaned up (And while this sounds easy, the fact that I was wheelbarrowing around an animal enclosure and kept slamming my shins into the wheelbarrow every time I hit a root made it a little bit more difficult). I had just enough time to get a new platform into Nakobi's (one of the cougars) enclosures before lunch.
The rest of my day was spent fixing shift gate handles again, and helping out with the fence. I am naturally a clumsy person and was just exhausted, so I tripped (and fell) twice, and almost fell off the ladder. Yay me! By the end of the day I was physically shaking every time I tried to pick anything up... I am so out of shape. It all needed to be done though, and I am glad that I could help to expand and improve the rescue, even if it is just in that no one will stab themselves on the wires when shifting cats anymore!
In a very cool moment, I did get to sit and observe the leopards for a few minutes today. One of them (I don't know if it was Shadow or Smokey) was growling and rubbing himself on things in his cage. The way his tail curled and kinked reminded me of my kitty Simian, but his big yellow eyes told me he wanted nothing more than to eat me. He rolled in the dirt, belly up, jumped up into his den box and groomed his brother/sister. I don't know if any of you have ever heard a leopard growl, but the sound is fascinating, tantalizing and terrifying. I think if I were out in the wild and heard it I would know that my time had come. People who keep them as pets are nuts!
Unfortunately Geoff really needed to get home by 5, so we actually left the rescue half an hour early, and I missed saying my goodbyes to Melanie and Kristin-neither of whom work tomorrow. I did run into Lenore who gave me a huge hug and told me how impressed they were with me, how they will miss me, and hope that I come back some day. She was very sincere and I was very touched. I know they get a lot of people in and out of there and a compliment from any of the keepers is never frivolous.
Tonight I will be packing everything up and loading what I can into my car. I am both very sad and very excited to be going home! I will certainly miss the animals and the amazing adventure that this has been. There is nothing like spending your day surrounded by tiger chuffs and growls, the "meow"s of servals, ocelots and caracals, the calls of lionesses talking to each other across the distance, and the growling of angry leopards.
For those who wanted my recipe (yes, Gael that is you :)) It follows:
Chicken Marsala:
1-1.5 lbs Chicken Breasts
1 t. Pepper
½ t. Thyme
¼ t. Garlic Powder
¾ t. Salt
½ t. Oregano
½ t. Parsley
¼ tsp. Marjoram
Olive Oil
1/3 c. Butter
2 t. Shallots (or onions)
2 t. Garlic
¼ c. Marsala Wine (Cooking wine works just fine)
1 container of mushrooms, sliced (can be any kind- Baby Bella’s or Buttons are personal favorites)
2 t. Corn starch (or flour if corn starch is not available)
1 c. Cold Chicken Broth
2 T. Heavy Whipping Cream
1 t. Parsley
Directions:
Combine first 7 ingredients. Coat chicken lightly with oil and coat with spices. Fry chicken in olive oil until completely cooked, remove to covered plate. In saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add shallots and garlic and sauté until garlic is lightly browned. Add marsala and simmer 30 seconds. Add mushrooms and cook about 15 minutes or until mushrooms are at desired tenderness. Dissolve corn starch in broth. Add to saucepan and simmer until sauce is thickened slightly. Add Parsley and heavy cream, simmer 3-4 minutes.
It serves great over spaghetti, and you can always increase the amount of sauce.
The day began innocently enough at CTR. I was handed a bin of fruits and veggies and was given the task of sorting them into bins by species (is that the right word?). Easy enough, and I got to hang out in the very pleasant cooler. I then waited around for a volunteer to arrive until nine- she was supposed to be my partner throughout the morning. Turns out she had called out and word just didn't get around to the keepers... So I then got the task of mixing and pouring concrete by myself. Kizzy, Max and Christian had got a new platform and the bottom of the poles needed to be solidified into the ground. Their enclosure is on "Tiger Hill" at the top of the compound... the 80 lb bags of cement, wheelbarrow and shovel were on the far end of the compound. Needless to say, I had to bring them up. Uphill. The entire way.
One pole got fixed into the ground, and I then got a call to head down to the new enclosure to help raise panels again. Being the monkey that I am, I was up and down the ladders helping weave fences together and get everything set up...for two hours. By this time I was hot, irritated and hungry, and I just really, really wanted to get the second pole fixed into the ground. It really only takes maybe 10 minutes to get concrete mixed and poured, and it had so far taken me over three hours! With an hour to spare till lunch I finally got back, got my cement poured and all my tools cleaned up (And while this sounds easy, the fact that I was wheelbarrowing around an animal enclosure and kept slamming my shins into the wheelbarrow every time I hit a root made it a little bit more difficult). I had just enough time to get a new platform into Nakobi's (one of the cougars) enclosures before lunch.
The rest of my day was spent fixing shift gate handles again, and helping out with the fence. I am naturally a clumsy person and was just exhausted, so I tripped (and fell) twice, and almost fell off the ladder. Yay me! By the end of the day I was physically shaking every time I tried to pick anything up... I am so out of shape. It all needed to be done though, and I am glad that I could help to expand and improve the rescue, even if it is just in that no one will stab themselves on the wires when shifting cats anymore!
In a very cool moment, I did get to sit and observe the leopards for a few minutes today. One of them (I don't know if it was Shadow or Smokey) was growling and rubbing himself on things in his cage. The way his tail curled and kinked reminded me of my kitty Simian, but his big yellow eyes told me he wanted nothing more than to eat me. He rolled in the dirt, belly up, jumped up into his den box and groomed his brother/sister. I don't know if any of you have ever heard a leopard growl, but the sound is fascinating, tantalizing and terrifying. I think if I were out in the wild and heard it I would know that my time had come. People who keep them as pets are nuts!
 |
| Jellybean- the resident white tiger. This is why people should not own tigers... I mean really, Jellybean?? |
 |
| Another view of the pretty boy. |
 |
| Julio, one of the most striking-looking ocelots here. He is under one of the shift gates between his two pens- his favorite spot to be. |
Unfortunately Geoff really needed to get home by 5, so we actually left the rescue half an hour early, and I missed saying my goodbyes to Melanie and Kristin-neither of whom work tomorrow. I did run into Lenore who gave me a huge hug and told me how impressed they were with me, how they will miss me, and hope that I come back some day. She was very sincere and I was very touched. I know they get a lot of people in and out of there and a compliment from any of the keepers is never frivolous.
Tonight I will be packing everything up and loading what I can into my car. I am both very sad and very excited to be going home! I will certainly miss the animals and the amazing adventure that this has been. There is nothing like spending your day surrounded by tiger chuffs and growls, the "meow"s of servals, ocelots and caracals, the calls of lionesses talking to each other across the distance, and the growling of angry leopards.
For those who wanted my recipe (yes, Gael that is you :)) It follows:
Chicken Marsala:
1-1.5 lbs Chicken Breasts
1 t. Pepper
½ t. Thyme
¼ t. Garlic Powder
¾ t. Salt
½ t. Oregano
½ t. Parsley
¼ tsp. Marjoram
Olive Oil
1/3 c. Butter
2 t. Shallots (or onions)
2 t. Garlic
¼ c. Marsala Wine (Cooking wine works just fine)
1 container of mushrooms, sliced (can be any kind- Baby Bella’s or Buttons are personal favorites)
2 t. Corn starch (or flour if corn starch is not available)
1 c. Cold Chicken Broth
2 T. Heavy Whipping Cream
1 t. Parsley
Directions:
Combine first 7 ingredients. Coat chicken lightly with oil and coat with spices. Fry chicken in olive oil until completely cooked, remove to covered plate. In saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add shallots and garlic and sauté until garlic is lightly browned. Add marsala and simmer 30 seconds. Add mushrooms and cook about 15 minutes or until mushrooms are at desired tenderness. Dissolve corn starch in broth. Add to saucepan and simmer until sauce is thickened slightly. Add Parsley and heavy cream, simmer 3-4 minutes.
It serves great over spaghetti, and you can always increase the amount of sauce.
~Rich With Life~
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Feather Zone
The Carolina Tiger Rescue is overrun with black vultures. It makes sense with all the dead animals, leftover food, poop, etc., but it can be a bit of a pain. They swoop everywhere, have no fear of humans, crap in the water pans and in general are a nuisance. Luckily, every now and then we find something worthwhile that comes from them... Today that was their feathers. A couple of bamboo mobiles, some feathers and a few squirts of Calvin Klein perfume later (lots of pheromones), the other interns and I had cat toys to hang from the top of the enclosures of the small cats.
Most of the day was spent with the two male interns, Josh G. ("the hunk" according to many of the volunteers, who does indeed want to run a zoo) and John (who wants to be a veterinary neurosurgeon). We cleaned a whole bunch of small and large cat enclosures, scooping poop and dead food animal remains (including the maggots that accompany them), and moving around the objects in their enclosures to shake things up. We also hooked the mobiles onto the ceilings of the enclosures while we were in there, and after unshifting the cats into the clean sides, we got to observe them batting, leaping and rubbing on everything around the mobiles. The Calvin Klein was definitely a success, and the feathers helped to stimulate their natural bird-hunting instincts.
I took some really great pictures, but unfortunately my phone died halfway through the day and it somehow lost them all! I think I might need a new SD card.
I also helped to put up some fencing for one of the new enclosures today. The rescue is always taking and moving big cats around, and they have lost a rather large amount of animals in the last year just due to old age. This makes openings for them to rescue from closed-down private zoos or exotic pet seizures. But they build their fences very sturdy and to last, with huge enclosures, and the 15+ foot chain link fences that I mentioned earlier. To get the panels of fencing up, they have a pulley system with ropes running from men on the ground, over the enclosure poles and to the top of the chain link fence, which is then hoisted off the ground and adjusted into place, then affixed to the poles and cemented in to the ground. Due to the weight of the fencing, you have to do it in 20 foot sections or it is unmanageable. So today they got two more panels up, and my job ended up being the one weaving the panels together to keep them sturdy- all the way to the top. It was very interesting to be a part of and to see the painstaking detail and strategy taken to get everything ready.
But most of my day, morning and afternoon, was spent just cleaning enclosures- not all that exciting but very, very necessary. The cooler also got fixed today, which was absolutely fantastic.
My evening ended with making dinner for the boys. Josh was out at an ultimate frisbee game, but Bill and Geoff were home and enjoyed my famous chicken marsala. It takes about an hour to make, but it is worth every minute of it! Maybe I am bragging, but I enjoy my own cooking. :) I made enough for at least 5 people and there was barely a serving left (they saved it for Josh so he knew what he missed out on). If anyone wants the recipe I am happy to share!
I am definitely going to miss these guys though- after two weeks of spending quite a bit of time with them they have become good friends, and I have enjoyed getting to know them in all of their older-brother teasing attitudes.
Anyway, that's all I got for today. Pretty tired after all day doing physical labor in the sun!
~Rich With Life~
Most of the day was spent with the two male interns, Josh G. ("the hunk" according to many of the volunteers, who does indeed want to run a zoo) and John (who wants to be a veterinary neurosurgeon). We cleaned a whole bunch of small and large cat enclosures, scooping poop and dead food animal remains (including the maggots that accompany them), and moving around the objects in their enclosures to shake things up. We also hooked the mobiles onto the ceilings of the enclosures while we were in there, and after unshifting the cats into the clean sides, we got to observe them batting, leaping and rubbing on everything around the mobiles. The Calvin Klein was definitely a success, and the feathers helped to stimulate their natural bird-hunting instincts.
I took some really great pictures, but unfortunately my phone died halfway through the day and it somehow lost them all! I think I might need a new SD card.
I also helped to put up some fencing for one of the new enclosures today. The rescue is always taking and moving big cats around, and they have lost a rather large amount of animals in the last year just due to old age. This makes openings for them to rescue from closed-down private zoos or exotic pet seizures. But they build their fences very sturdy and to last, with huge enclosures, and the 15+ foot chain link fences that I mentioned earlier. To get the panels of fencing up, they have a pulley system with ropes running from men on the ground, over the enclosure poles and to the top of the chain link fence, which is then hoisted off the ground and adjusted into place, then affixed to the poles and cemented in to the ground. Due to the weight of the fencing, you have to do it in 20 foot sections or it is unmanageable. So today they got two more panels up, and my job ended up being the one weaving the panels together to keep them sturdy- all the way to the top. It was very interesting to be a part of and to see the painstaking detail and strategy taken to get everything ready.
But most of my day, morning and afternoon, was spent just cleaning enclosures- not all that exciting but very, very necessary. The cooler also got fixed today, which was absolutely fantastic.
My evening ended with making dinner for the boys. Josh was out at an ultimate frisbee game, but Bill and Geoff were home and enjoyed my famous chicken marsala. It takes about an hour to make, but it is worth every minute of it! Maybe I am bragging, but I enjoy my own cooking. :) I made enough for at least 5 people and there was barely a serving left (they saved it for Josh so he knew what he missed out on). If anyone wants the recipe I am happy to share!
I am definitely going to miss these guys though- after two weeks of spending quite a bit of time with them they have become good friends, and I have enjoyed getting to know them in all of their older-brother teasing attitudes.
Anyway, that's all I got for today. Pretty tired after all day doing physical labor in the sun!
~Rich With Life~
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
And Then Came the Storm
This morning started out as a bit of a mess. Josh (one of the interns) called out, and Rachel (another intern) also called out. Josh was sick, Rachel just decided to stay at the beach an extra day.
So I headed out with Kristin to feed the binturongs, and was supposed to then head down and clean a tiger pool at the very far end of the compound, which was supposed to have cleaning tools dropped off for us. Me and Kristin got all the bints fed and their fish oil capsules dispenesed, headed down to Bali's enclosure and there was nothing there. Now we all carry radios on our belts the entire time we are in the compound in case we need to get in touch with a keeper, volunteer, intern, etc. Bali's enclosure is in a hole of sorts where no reception gets through. So after messing with the hose and trying to get it even close to the enclosure, looking everywhere for the supplies and in general wasting a good half hour of time, we finally got some reception on the radio and called in to find out what was going on. We were then mildly berated for not re-checking the schedule after we fed the bints, because we were actually supposed to clean another tiger pool... Apparently no one had seen fit to radio and tell us that the plans had changed. Nice. We finally got directions to do Nitro's pool, so we cleaned it, filled it and finally got something done. By this time it was already 10:30 am! Most of the morning gone, and in a stressful state.
I then did some enrichment with the tigers. Spraying some perfume on crumpled newspaper and tossing it into the enclosure- easy enough. But unfortunately it was like 90% humidity and 90+ degrees, so no one was moving or wanted to even check it out. This meant that my enrichment (which would normally take .5 hours or more if the tigers were interested) only took me like 20 minutes. I guess I kind of made up the time I lost? I did get to spend some time with Bali again, which I enjoyed as I quite appreciate his personality. He is a handsome fellow with a cleft/scar in his nose (not sure the story there), a big boy with a big attitude. When I walked up today he was giving me the biggest "I'm a tiger and I'm going to eat you" face that I have ever seen. He then grunted, groaned and growled at me, and we played a little predator and prey- I crouched down and hid behind some grass making distressed animal noises and he rushed the fence and tried to scare me (I played along). He looked so happy with himself at my feigned terror (though my heart did race- it is impossible not to be at least a little bit scared when a huge creature with fangs is running at you)!
The rest of the day was mostly finishing the dewormers (just the three that turned their noses up yesterday), and then fixing shift gate handles with broken wood, loose bolts or wires sticking out. Yay power tools! In the middle of this we were all interrupted by a huge, random thunder storm that shook the buildings with it's force. The compound closes down whenever lightning is seen, so we all ended up cleaning the keepers' "cage"- their office was absolutely filthy. Jared considers this all "slave labor," but I consider it part of the experience... you have to take the good with the bad- the vet exams with the physical labor. I enjoy it all, and am happy to lend my hands where they can be of use.
Anyway, I did really enjoy getting to know Kristin a little better today. I find it fascinating to learn about other people, their lives, personalities and character facets. Kristin is also pre-vet, about a year or two older than me, went to community college for two years, is engaged, and just a very nice person. She also has worked in a nationally famous genetics lab, is a vet tech for a sport's medicine equine vet, vet techs at a small animal hospital, has a job as a waitress, another job working in the Bio department at UNC, and is in the intern program at Carolina Tiger Rescue... WOW. I was very impressed... and also became very worried about my own vet experiences... I have around 400 hours of equine/mixed medicine experience, about 5 hours of small animal (I will be working on this when I get back to MD)... and that is it. No exciting research experience or shadowing with world famous vets. One of the friends I have who is in vet school interned at the Baltimore Aquarium and drove like an hour and a half to get there every day! Is it that I am just not committed enough to drive that far, that I am too afraid of failure, that I just lack the ambition to go for it? I am not sure... It did definitely solidify my desire to help out at a local spay and neuter clinic, and to apply for a pre-vet paid internship with the FDA in Rockville, MD next Summer. And cross my fingers that I get in. I am going to have to step up my game this year if I want to make my dream happen!
~Rich With Life~
So I headed out with Kristin to feed the binturongs, and was supposed to then head down and clean a tiger pool at the very far end of the compound, which was supposed to have cleaning tools dropped off for us. Me and Kristin got all the bints fed and their fish oil capsules dispenesed, headed down to Bali's enclosure and there was nothing there. Now we all carry radios on our belts the entire time we are in the compound in case we need to get in touch with a keeper, volunteer, intern, etc. Bali's enclosure is in a hole of sorts where no reception gets through. So after messing with the hose and trying to get it even close to the enclosure, looking everywhere for the supplies and in general wasting a good half hour of time, we finally got some reception on the radio and called in to find out what was going on. We were then mildly berated for not re-checking the schedule after we fed the bints, because we were actually supposed to clean another tiger pool... Apparently no one had seen fit to radio and tell us that the plans had changed. Nice. We finally got directions to do Nitro's pool, so we cleaned it, filled it and finally got something done. By this time it was already 10:30 am! Most of the morning gone, and in a stressful state.
I then did some enrichment with the tigers. Spraying some perfume on crumpled newspaper and tossing it into the enclosure- easy enough. But unfortunately it was like 90% humidity and 90+ degrees, so no one was moving or wanted to even check it out. This meant that my enrichment (which would normally take .5 hours or more if the tigers were interested) only took me like 20 minutes. I guess I kind of made up the time I lost? I did get to spend some time with Bali again, which I enjoyed as I quite appreciate his personality. He is a handsome fellow with a cleft/scar in his nose (not sure the story there), a big boy with a big attitude. When I walked up today he was giving me the biggest "I'm a tiger and I'm going to eat you" face that I have ever seen. He then grunted, groaned and growled at me, and we played a little predator and prey- I crouched down and hid behind some grass making distressed animal noises and he rushed the fence and tried to scare me (I played along). He looked so happy with himself at my feigned terror (though my heart did race- it is impossible not to be at least a little bit scared when a huge creature with fangs is running at you)!
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| The handsome Bali. The cleft on his nose can be seen on his right side. |
Anyway, I did really enjoy getting to know Kristin a little better today. I find it fascinating to learn about other people, their lives, personalities and character facets. Kristin is also pre-vet, about a year or two older than me, went to community college for two years, is engaged, and just a very nice person. She also has worked in a nationally famous genetics lab, is a vet tech for a sport's medicine equine vet, vet techs at a small animal hospital, has a job as a waitress, another job working in the Bio department at UNC, and is in the intern program at Carolina Tiger Rescue... WOW. I was very impressed... and also became very worried about my own vet experiences... I have around 400 hours of equine/mixed medicine experience, about 5 hours of small animal (I will be working on this when I get back to MD)... and that is it. No exciting research experience or shadowing with world famous vets. One of the friends I have who is in vet school interned at the Baltimore Aquarium and drove like an hour and a half to get there every day! Is it that I am just not committed enough to drive that far, that I am too afraid of failure, that I just lack the ambition to go for it? I am not sure... It did definitely solidify my desire to help out at a local spay and neuter clinic, and to apply for a pre-vet paid internship with the FDA in Rockville, MD next Summer. And cross my fingers that I get in. I am going to have to step up my game this year if I want to make my dream happen!
~Rich With Life~
Monday, July 16, 2012
Mouse Guts!
Morning began with food prep for the binturongs and kinks (on my own this time). A very sad thing happened this weekend... Carmelita, whose pool I cleaned on Friday, was doing much worse. On Friday she had been very lethargic, refusing to move for more than a few feet, and was bleeding and oozing. Yesterday the vet came out to look at her, and once she was tranquilized, they found that her cancer had begun to spread...She was very uncomfortable. I am not sure what other health issues they found, but I know they mentioned her respiration was off. The decision was made to euthanize her at that time, and upon her necropsy (animal autopsy), they found that the cancer had actually spread through her chest, into her longs and have even attacked a wall of her heart. She would probably not have survived or been comfortable even another week. Carmelita has always been a favorite of many volunteers, tour guides and workers, as she was a grunter, chuffer, talked and overall goofball. On Friday I had actually grabbed a picture of her, where despite her pain, she was rolling and tiger grunting at us:
She will be missed.
The rest of the morning I got a chance to do something I have not done before- clean enclosures. As I mentioned earlier, they have shiftable enclosures, and most of these are what are classified as Level 2's (small cats) or Level 4's (big cats). When you begin to clean cages, these are what you start with, as you are not actually going in with a cat, but are moving them out of the enclosure and then cleaning, looking for bones, dead animals, vomit, poop, loose/damaged platforms, holes/damage in the fence, that sort of thing. You also place enrichment in the enclosure. Normal enrichment for the small cats fits through the chain link holes or feeding shoots, but when you go in to clean you can put in big boxes, new structures, or other large objects which are quite fun for them. So I got to work with two long-term volunteers, Evan and Susie, and my favorite intern, Melanie.
After lunch, I was the only non-volunteer there, and only two volunteers came in, so it was a very quiet day. Lenore let me do something I quite enjoyed, which was to give all the animals their dewormer- Ivermectin. So I got to interact with almost all of the animals, injecting the dewormer into chicken for the Caracals, into mice bellies for the Servals and Ocelots, bananas for the binturongs, and into steak for the Tigers. Male tigers got the most dewormer (at 0.65 mL), Bint's got anything from .3-.5 mL, female tigers got .35 mL, and little cats got .05 mL- quite a difference between the species! As I went around, I tried to snap some good pictures of the animals, for, as Jared says, my blogs are really long and don't have enough pictures for the normal people out there!
Overall my day was really restful, which was great. I wore long sleeves all day to protect my poison, and that seemed to do well. It was really humid, but not incredibly hot, so this wasn't too uncomfortable. I stayed a little later than normal tonight, as I was talking with Ed about the ethics of hunting. See, since I was one of the only people there, and had more experience than both the volunteers in the afternoon, I got some more one-on-one time with the keepers. I DID actually see Ed smile, and learned that he really likes puns, as well as just has a quiet sense of humor about the animals... The other two keepers are vegan/vegetarian, but Ed actually hunts, tans his own hides, processes the skulls, and uses every bit of the animals- which is awesome. Lenore is in the process of opening her own rescue for food animals- she is very against the food processing industry, and wants to take in cattle, chickens, hogs, etc. that are past their "use" on farms and might just need some veterinary care rather than being put down as often happens. While I agree that this is a sad thing, I also don't think this is a reason to stop eating meat- in my family we hunt deer, get our meat from a local butcher shop (of whom I personally know the butcher and their practices) or pick one out of the field of a local farm. Our pork is from kids 4-H projects, our eggs are from my own chickens. I have helped butcher a deer, watched a hog and a cow being butchered, seen an animal's last moments. I understand what I am taking, and the price that it comes at... and I value it. The animals that I consume have had a free life, or if not free, at least comfortable. Many have been loved and given excellent care. Personally, if I were one day eaten by an animal, I would consider it part of the food chain, and my place in the life cycle. It is just a different way of living than the average American, who do get their meat in impersonalized packages and don't think where it came from or what type of life it had.
It is all shades really, the spectrum of life and the interactions of man and beast.
One of the things I was thinking about this morning and did not have the chance to express was the personal trip it took me to get down here... It was a very scary thing for me to take a gamble on this two-week adventure, to live on the couch of people I have never met, to drive 8 hours to get to a place I had only been once, to spend money (quite a lot for me, the thrifty/cheap money-hoarder) on food and gas which I will never get back, and to at times put my foot down to everyone else who was worried, all for an experience I might have hated. But I got lucky, and instead of telling myself that it was too much, too scary and unfamiliar, I made myself go through with it, pushed through the doubts and the uncertainties, and I have grown. More than just learning about the animals and people here or finding an interest I never knew I had in exotic animals, I have learned about myself and what I can do on my own. For the first time in a long time, I found courage, a sense of humor, responsibility, leadership skills, and confidence in greater quantities than I ever thought I had.
Take a gamble, you never know what you might learn about yourself in the process- good or bad.
The rest of the morning I got a chance to do something I have not done before- clean enclosures. As I mentioned earlier, they have shiftable enclosures, and most of these are what are classified as Level 2's (small cats) or Level 4's (big cats). When you begin to clean cages, these are what you start with, as you are not actually going in with a cat, but are moving them out of the enclosure and then cleaning, looking for bones, dead animals, vomit, poop, loose/damaged platforms, holes/damage in the fence, that sort of thing. You also place enrichment in the enclosure. Normal enrichment for the small cats fits through the chain link holes or feeding shoots, but when you go in to clean you can put in big boxes, new structures, or other large objects which are quite fun for them. So I got to work with two long-term volunteers, Evan and Susie, and my favorite intern, Melanie.
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| Collins, the crazy bobcat (who is my favorite bobcat). The end of my stick has a mouse on it, and he is about to pounce! |
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| Rajaji staring at me over the corner of his newly-cleaned pool. |
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| Christian munching on a chicken carcass. |
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| Renee, our 3-legged ocelot, and her cagemate Oliver, sharing a gentle moment. |
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| Renee again. |
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| Kizmet enjoying a drink. |
It is all shades really, the spectrum of life and the interactions of man and beast.
One of the things I was thinking about this morning and did not have the chance to express was the personal trip it took me to get down here... It was a very scary thing for me to take a gamble on this two-week adventure, to live on the couch of people I have never met, to drive 8 hours to get to a place I had only been once, to spend money (quite a lot for me, the thrifty/cheap money-hoarder) on food and gas which I will never get back, and to at times put my foot down to everyone else who was worried, all for an experience I might have hated. But I got lucky, and instead of telling myself that it was too much, too scary and unfamiliar, I made myself go through with it, pushed through the doubts and the uncertainties, and I have grown. More than just learning about the animals and people here or finding an interest I never knew I had in exotic animals, I have learned about myself and what I can do on my own. For the first time in a long time, I found courage, a sense of humor, responsibility, leadership skills, and confidence in greater quantities than I ever thought I had.
Take a gamble, you never know what you might learn about yourself in the process- good or bad.
Monday Morning Musings
I forgot to write last night... or rather, I remembered to write after I was in bed and was too lazy to get up. Yesterday was a nice, easy relaxing day- Josh made a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon (YUM), and the boys all headed off to their respective daily activities- Josh and Geoff to ultimate frisbee practice/church, Bill to church and then to dance rehearsal (did I ever mention that I found out that what he does is dance? And quite well too from what I have seen). I then had the house to myself and did some cleaning, which of course necessitated cleaning the cleaning supplies, since most people apparently don't know that you have to clean the brushes, tanks and filters on vacuum cleaners, especially the little $50 ones. I managed to get quite dirty cleaning up, but got the kitchen and living room/dining room clean.
Once the boys got back, we headed into Carrboro so they could get some beer (Red Oak?) and pick up a few things from the grocery store. The rest of my evening was spent catching up on work and A Dance of Dragons (A Song of Fire and Ice Book 5 by George R. R. Martin), while the boys played C.O.D. and watched old sitcoms on Netflix. They taught me to play a strange board game called "The Settlers of Catan" which is from Germany and requires you to build cities, settlements and roads and attempt to out-populate and out-resource the other players. We only played one game, which I miserably lost, but I think I have more of a feel for it the next time we get it out.
Headed to the Tiger Rescue soon- I have to be there by 8:30 and it is already 7:45... I'm kind of procrastinating this morning. I was going to reflect a bit on my adventure coming down here, but I suppose that will have to wait until the evening.
Until later,
~Rich With Life~
Once the boys got back, we headed into Carrboro so they could get some beer (Red Oak?) and pick up a few things from the grocery store. The rest of my evening was spent catching up on work and A Dance of Dragons (A Song of Fire and Ice Book 5 by George R. R. Martin), while the boys played C.O.D. and watched old sitcoms on Netflix. They taught me to play a strange board game called "The Settlers of Catan" which is from Germany and requires you to build cities, settlements and roads and attempt to out-populate and out-resource the other players. We only played one game, which I miserably lost, but I think I have more of a feel for it the next time we get it out.
Headed to the Tiger Rescue soon- I have to be there by 8:30 and it is already 7:45... I'm kind of procrastinating this morning. I was going to reflect a bit on my adventure coming down here, but I suppose that will have to wait until the evening.
Until later,
~Rich With Life~
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Break Day
I woke up this morning (at 10 am) and the swelling was almost all gone! Amazing. The redness and itching has decreased exceptionally. Unfortunately, I then pushed myself by going out into Carrboro and going exploring- went to a bunch of thrift stores and to the grocery store, wore a long sleeve shirt the entire time (both to protect myself from the sun and to stop people walking away from me in a ten foot radius like I am a leper).
It is a really, really cool town and I very much enjoyed meeting the people that I met and seeing the hippie town on foot. People are so friendly down here! I didn't buy anything (I am definitely getting low on cash), though I almost bought a mug for Geoff that said "friends don't let friends get cats"- he absolutely hates cats, which I find amusing since he works at a big cat rescue. Anyway, once I started to get tired after about two hours out, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a foil roasting pan, a 3 pound round roast, carrots, celery and potatoes for dinner. Figured with how nice the boys have been to me I should do a little something for them. I also picked up a southern treat- Cheerwine, a cherry-flavored soda that is only slightly carbonated and mildly sweet, but very, very good. I am definitely picking up a couple cases on my way home, money shortage or not. I will be glad to be paid for my pet sitting when I get back home!
I noticed when I got back to the townhouse that my hand had re-swollen some, and my right arm as well. Now I know what happens when I push myself! I then relaxed, played rock band with Josh and Bill (Geoff works on Saturdays), and put the roast in the oven... and so began the disaster that was attempting to make dinner. I chopped up potatoes, threw them in a pot, chopped up zucchini and squash, had everything cooking and set up to finish with the roast at 6:45pm (2 hours of roast-in-oven). No potato masher, no hand mixer... Hmmm... found a meat mallet and a gallon sized bag and went to town. This actually worked pretty well for my mashed potatoes, and got me some mildly chunky results. Then realized I didn't have enough butter for my mashed potatoes and my zucchini, so I sacrificed the zucchini and just salted and peppered them. The timer goes off, I pull the roast out of the oven, cut it open.... and it is still rare! Yikes. I forgot to take into account that I was using a foil pan and not an actual roasting pan, and so it would need about 1/2 hour- 45 minutes longer- but everything else was done. So I pulled out the roast and cut off the edges that were well-medium cooked, and put the rest back in the oven. Of course in the cutting off, I didn't think to pull the roast out of the pan, poked a hole in the foil, lost half my juice all over the stove top, shoved a plate underneath... etc. A mess. I will never again take all of my kitchen tools for granted!!
I made some gravy in the microwave (as I normally just use the roasting pan on the stove), and by then I had enough food to feed Bill and Josh- Geoff had a date so he missed out tonight. They were happy enough with my food, went back for thirds and practically licked their plates clean! By the time the rest of the roast was done, we had just finished up the first part of it, so it worked out pretty well, with plenty of leftovers. And a lot of cleanup. But it was warm, hot food that didn't come from a microwaveable package, so my stomach was quite happy. Josh and Bill also cleaned up the dishes/mess for me, so that was incredibly nice.
At the end of my day, I am quite tired... thinking of slipping into a lukewarm bath (the doctor mentioned that this helps with the poison) and relaxing some more with a good book- then to bed! Not sure what I will do tomorrow, but I know I need to make sure I keep it pretty laid back because I missed all the big kitties today and I want to make sure I am in top shape for Monday!
An update on the home front: A couple weeks ago, my mom began reclaiming the extra/unneeded furniture around the house for Serenity (the house in VA). It is practically unfurnished down there, and with a house full of unappreciated or not necessarily needed furniture (the one I am living in), my mom rightly saw no need to buy more. So we have been pulling all the non-essentials and taking them down to VA. Me and Jared have begun to look for our own furniture for the house, mostly at auctions. So far we have gotten a coffee table and two end tables that are oak and extremely nice, and yesterday my aunt shot me a facebook message saying that she and her new husband had a lot of extra furniture after combining households. Well the timing could not have been better! My sweet Jared is going down tomorrow with truck and trailer and bringing home a house full of new stuff! I cannot wait to see it (or what he does with it all). While I have always hated change (especially of furniture, houses, people, etc.), my jaunt to NC has so far helped me to get past this... with both a sense of humor and an adventurous attitude. I guess you never know what things you will learn about yourself when you completely uproot and surround yourself with strangers and a strange environment. So far I have learned that I have much more courage, strength and humor within me than I ever thought, as well as some rusty social skills that polish off quite nicely. Who knew?
~Rich With Life~
It is a really, really cool town and I very much enjoyed meeting the people that I met and seeing the hippie town on foot. People are so friendly down here! I didn't buy anything (I am definitely getting low on cash), though I almost bought a mug for Geoff that said "friends don't let friends get cats"- he absolutely hates cats, which I find amusing since he works at a big cat rescue. Anyway, once I started to get tired after about two hours out, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a foil roasting pan, a 3 pound round roast, carrots, celery and potatoes for dinner. Figured with how nice the boys have been to me I should do a little something for them. I also picked up a southern treat- Cheerwine, a cherry-flavored soda that is only slightly carbonated and mildly sweet, but very, very good. I am definitely picking up a couple cases on my way home, money shortage or not. I will be glad to be paid for my pet sitting when I get back home!
I noticed when I got back to the townhouse that my hand had re-swollen some, and my right arm as well. Now I know what happens when I push myself! I then relaxed, played rock band with Josh and Bill (Geoff works on Saturdays), and put the roast in the oven... and so began the disaster that was attempting to make dinner. I chopped up potatoes, threw them in a pot, chopped up zucchini and squash, had everything cooking and set up to finish with the roast at 6:45pm (2 hours of roast-in-oven). No potato masher, no hand mixer... Hmmm... found a meat mallet and a gallon sized bag and went to town. This actually worked pretty well for my mashed potatoes, and got me some mildly chunky results. Then realized I didn't have enough butter for my mashed potatoes and my zucchini, so I sacrificed the zucchini and just salted and peppered them. The timer goes off, I pull the roast out of the oven, cut it open.... and it is still rare! Yikes. I forgot to take into account that I was using a foil pan and not an actual roasting pan, and so it would need about 1/2 hour- 45 minutes longer- but everything else was done. So I pulled out the roast and cut off the edges that were well-medium cooked, and put the rest back in the oven. Of course in the cutting off, I didn't think to pull the roast out of the pan, poked a hole in the foil, lost half my juice all over the stove top, shoved a plate underneath... etc. A mess. I will never again take all of my kitchen tools for granted!!
I made some gravy in the microwave (as I normally just use the roasting pan on the stove), and by then I had enough food to feed Bill and Josh- Geoff had a date so he missed out tonight. They were happy enough with my food, went back for thirds and practically licked their plates clean! By the time the rest of the roast was done, we had just finished up the first part of it, so it worked out pretty well, with plenty of leftovers. And a lot of cleanup. But it was warm, hot food that didn't come from a microwaveable package, so my stomach was quite happy. Josh and Bill also cleaned up the dishes/mess for me, so that was incredibly nice.
At the end of my day, I am quite tired... thinking of slipping into a lukewarm bath (the doctor mentioned that this helps with the poison) and relaxing some more with a good book- then to bed! Not sure what I will do tomorrow, but I know I need to make sure I keep it pretty laid back because I missed all the big kitties today and I want to make sure I am in top shape for Monday!
An update on the home front: A couple weeks ago, my mom began reclaiming the extra/unneeded furniture around the house for Serenity (the house in VA). It is practically unfurnished down there, and with a house full of unappreciated or not necessarily needed furniture (the one I am living in), my mom rightly saw no need to buy more. So we have been pulling all the non-essentials and taking them down to VA. Me and Jared have begun to look for our own furniture for the house, mostly at auctions. So far we have gotten a coffee table and two end tables that are oak and extremely nice, and yesterday my aunt shot me a facebook message saying that she and her new husband had a lot of extra furniture after combining households. Well the timing could not have been better! My sweet Jared is going down tomorrow with truck and trailer and bringing home a house full of new stuff! I cannot wait to see it (or what he does with it all). While I have always hated change (especially of furniture, houses, people, etc.), my jaunt to NC has so far helped me to get past this... with both a sense of humor and an adventurous attitude. I guess you never know what things you will learn about yourself when you completely uproot and surround yourself with strangers and a strange environment. So far I have learned that I have much more courage, strength and humor within me than I ever thought, as well as some rusty social skills that polish off quite nicely. Who knew?
~Rich With Life~
Friday, July 13, 2012
Steroids!!
Yes, you read it right. I am on steroids. After my left arm began to swell today and my right hand (which has no poison ivy) blew up and began to look like Doloros Umbridge's fat paws, I figured it was time to pull up my britches and go to a doctor. I got off of work today and headed to the closest thing, a minute clinic. All they did was take a look at me and send me to UNC Urgent Care. I am officially the worst case that the doctor at UNC had seen besides those who inhale it. He thought my swelling was quite interesting and kept poking and prodding me. So I got a shot of steroids in my butt, and a 16-day prescription for prendizone, as well as some topical cream and some stronger-than-benadryl itch relief drug. Success! So I am a little hyped up right now. I just really want my disgustingness to go away- the oozing and itching and swelling is just wrong.
Anyway, today I just did waters for the right side of the compound (and found a puncture wound on Fenimore tiger), then a little enrichment with the cougars Jericho and Star, which included putting cougar urine and fox urine on a paper bag. Jericho (who was in a really friendly mood) came up and purred at me, and then rubbed and ripped at the bag. Star wasn't very interested, perhaps because of the many tours going through the compound which were making her a bit nervous. I then took another giant stuffed leopard through the compound and tried to get some of the small cats to react... Unfortunately only one of the cats actually liked it- Collins, the wildest bobcat. He chased me growling around his enclosure. The rest were completely unamused. I also learned how to clean pools officially, and got to interract with the tiger Carmelita, who has a fatty lipoma that has been oozing lately, and was quite bloody today, which worried the keepers.
That got me to lunch, and then I started again on the worst job I have ever had- sorting rotten chicken from good chicken. I thought yesterday was awful, but today when I was stiff, had lost a lot of mobility in my right arm and was generally exhausted, it was ten thousand times worse. BUT we got through all of the chicken, and only left a couple buckets of random meat to go through. I almost lost it when I slit open a bag where the blood was black, and maggots were swimming around- Gross!
As soon as I got off I headed to the doctors, and then to BK because I was craving a burger and fries. I cannot go to work tomorrow, so instead am going in on Monday, and will work Monday-Friday, and hopefully drive the two hours to VA on Friday evening after work. Right now I am going to go eat some more munchy food, and maybe finally get some sleep.
~Rich With Life~
Anyway, today I just did waters for the right side of the compound (and found a puncture wound on Fenimore tiger), then a little enrichment with the cougars Jericho and Star, which included putting cougar urine and fox urine on a paper bag. Jericho (who was in a really friendly mood) came up and purred at me, and then rubbed and ripped at the bag. Star wasn't very interested, perhaps because of the many tours going through the compound which were making her a bit nervous. I then took another giant stuffed leopard through the compound and tried to get some of the small cats to react... Unfortunately only one of the cats actually liked it- Collins, the wildest bobcat. He chased me growling around his enclosure. The rest were completely unamused. I also learned how to clean pools officially, and got to interract with the tiger Carmelita, who has a fatty lipoma that has been oozing lately, and was quite bloody today, which worried the keepers.
That got me to lunch, and then I started again on the worst job I have ever had- sorting rotten chicken from good chicken. I thought yesterday was awful, but today when I was stiff, had lost a lot of mobility in my right arm and was generally exhausted, it was ten thousand times worse. BUT we got through all of the chicken, and only left a couple buckets of random meat to go through. I almost lost it when I slit open a bag where the blood was black, and maggots were swimming around- Gross!
As soon as I got off I headed to the doctors, and then to BK because I was craving a burger and fries. I cannot go to work tomorrow, so instead am going in on Monday, and will work Monday-Friday, and hopefully drive the two hours to VA on Friday evening after work. Right now I am going to go eat some more munchy food, and maybe finally get some sleep.
~Rich With Life~
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Day 4 (!) Compound Cleanup Day!
Today is Thursday, a fact I was quite surprised about this morning! My days are so short and my itch-filled nights so long that time is flying by. Today I started off my day with learning how to do waters for the animals. More or less this consists of opening a metal door, pulling out a water dish, closing the door, scrubbing the water dish, replacing it and filling it with water carried around in 5 gallon buckets. The entire time you are opening a paw-sized hole into the enclosure, and so you have to wait around till the animals decide that you don't have food and therefore aren't interesting and walk away, before you can begin. The spickets luckily are set all around the compound within easy access to each group of enclosures, and this makes things a good bit less painful than they could be. I was set out with Josh, a summer-long intern from Rutgers university, who drove down from NJ to come here. He is education/pre-vet/Biology something or another- he wants to either run a zoo or a school- when he told me I wasn't sure which he said and I can't quite discount either possibility down here!
(On a side note, the interns are a different program than the one I am in. They are half-summer programs and there are 6 of them. They have "class" once a week where they learn about the life of an animal keeper- whether this is vet "class," animal feeding/nutrition "class," animal cleanliness "class," etc. They also have a specific section of the compound assigned to them, and every day they check and record on those animals on their "rounds" as they are called. They also write 2-page papers weekly on various species-specific subjects, and have to come up with a novel enrichment to try out on their section each week. Overall it is a really cool program- if I had the time and ability I would definitely do it!)
Anyway, whilst we were out doing waters, we had reached the far tiger enclosures and I set off to do the waters for Emerson and another tiger, and Josh went to do Bali-who I think is the biggest, most majestic of the tigers here. I heard some angry roaring and Josh called me back over since Bali was in some mood and wanted nothing to do with him. Well I had got him to come up to me yesterday so I hoped I would have better luck- and I did. He let me approach his water dish and only stood a little protectively over it, his ears back and making some grunting noises, but no growling or roaring. With some baby/tiger talk and friendly chuffing I got him to calm down enough to safely change his water. But boy was that a good reinforcement of how dangerous and unpredictable these guys can be. Bali is in the far back part of the compound because he is considered one of the more "wild" tigers- unlike the ones on the tour route who will come up to the fence and rub. I almost wish they would put these guys on tour though- I feel like that would help the message of CTR to sink in more- that these guys are not pets. I also got to meet the leopards, Smokey and Shadow, for the first time.
After waters, I accompanied Josh on his rounds (since he has my favorite tigers in his section) to see what exactly the interns do, and then I started on the grossest, most smelly tasks of my life. Remember how I said that everything at CTR is donated? Well that includes the freezers and coolers. The cooler crapped out last week, and the freezer has been dying for awhile, so that it is now a cooler. Local restaurants have been kind enough to let CTR store food in their freezers. The animals on the compound mainly eat chicken, unless someone donates a cow, horse or deer, and a large amount of chicken is kept on hand in the cooler/freezer, or was never moved from the freezer once it started to die. That being said, my job today was to sort out the good and bad fruit and veggies, and afterwards with the help of Melanie and two volunteers, to sort out the bad meat from the good meat. After today, I WILL NEVER EAT CHICKEN QUARTERS AGAIN! They turn green, then begin to putrefy. This is accompanied by the fowlest smell I have ever, ever had to experience. It sticks in your nostrils, on your clothes, etc., and when you open up a bag of chicken and the smell explodes at you, it makes all sorts of stomach contents re-emerge. Nasty! It also made lunch really unappetizing.
After lunch I joined in on the Compound Cleanup Day, which happens once every quarter, and is where all of the staff and many volunteers come out and beautify the compound. Today that included taking revenge on the fire ants by pouring boiling water around and on the mounds (luckily not my job) and taking down some old enclosures (my job). With Lenore, Maree, Josh and Jessie, we dug out the concrete at the bottom of some old enclosure panels, then knocked the panels over and sledgehammered the concrete off the bottom so we could re-use them. I learned that I definitely should not try to sledgehammer ever again in my life. I could do all of ten swings and then I was done... After three hours, we had gotten three panels done (much quicker than the previous pace of one every 4 hours) and had a system going.
Finally we all called it quits at three, when the interns had to present their papers, and I got to go out and see if the cougars liked to be sprayed with water (they didn't). However, I did find that the biggest male, Nakobi, really likes to play. My healthy fear of cougars was somewhat reinforced and somewhat lessened at the same time as I played hide and seek with the cougar, and we chased each other up and down the fence line. I am proud to say that he ran out of breath before I did. You would never know it, but cougars can actually purr! After hiding around trees, and he around his den box, leaping out at each other and chasing one another, he laid down next to the fence and began to purr at me, rubbing his face on the wire. It was both endearing and sad- knowing that this guy had been raised by humans and had become so much less than he would have been in the wild, and also that he may even have liked humans, but would never again be touched by one (not that that is a bad thing!). I wrapped up my day with fly spraying a few of the tigers, and even got the biggest male lion, Sebastian, to come out and get sprayed (I missed him yesterday so he really needed it). I did lose my knife today, which I am kind of upset about, as it was a gift from my grandfather and was really, really nice... hoping someone stumbles across it on a tour or just around the compound- I know I lost it along one of the main causeways so that at least is good news. Anyway, I took a really cute picture of Kizmet, Max and Christian, right before Kizmet got annoyed that I wouldn't feed her anymore meat and sprayed me (sort of like peeing, but more hormones/pheromones than urine). Geoff says it smells like buttered popcorn, but luckily my nose was so shut down after the chicken that I couldn't smell anything.
Finally, we got back to the apartment and the washer and dryer had been fixed, so I got my clothes in (thank god), and everything is getting unsmellified.
An update on my poison ivy: My mother overnighted me some Ivy Dry, so I will be very happily using that before I go to sleep tonight. It has spread up my shoulders and onto my chest, as well as onto my stomach. It is also all around my ankles which are swollen and stocky and now look like "cankles." There is also some on my knees and creeping up my legs (which I don't really understand). My face has gotten a little worse, as it has spread across my cheekbone and some appeared on my chin and ears today. Basically, I look like one giant red, bumpy rash. Yay! I also found my first tick today (ew) which embedded itself on my upper thigh. I cut it out to make sure I got the head. Fun times! Hoping to actually sleep tonight.
~Rich With Life~
(On a side note, the interns are a different program than the one I am in. They are half-summer programs and there are 6 of them. They have "class" once a week where they learn about the life of an animal keeper- whether this is vet "class," animal feeding/nutrition "class," animal cleanliness "class," etc. They also have a specific section of the compound assigned to them, and every day they check and record on those animals on their "rounds" as they are called. They also write 2-page papers weekly on various species-specific subjects, and have to come up with a novel enrichment to try out on their section each week. Overall it is a really cool program- if I had the time and ability I would definitely do it!)
 |
| Shadow (one of the black leopards), next to her water dish. |
After waters, I accompanied Josh on his rounds (since he has my favorite tigers in his section) to see what exactly the interns do, and then I started on the grossest, most smelly tasks of my life. Remember how I said that everything at CTR is donated? Well that includes the freezers and coolers. The cooler crapped out last week, and the freezer has been dying for awhile, so that it is now a cooler. Local restaurants have been kind enough to let CTR store food in their freezers. The animals on the compound mainly eat chicken, unless someone donates a cow, horse or deer, and a large amount of chicken is kept on hand in the cooler/freezer, or was never moved from the freezer once it started to die. That being said, my job today was to sort out the good and bad fruit and veggies, and afterwards with the help of Melanie and two volunteers, to sort out the bad meat from the good meat. After today, I WILL NEVER EAT CHICKEN QUARTERS AGAIN! They turn green, then begin to putrefy. This is accompanied by the fowlest smell I have ever, ever had to experience. It sticks in your nostrils, on your clothes, etc., and when you open up a bag of chicken and the smell explodes at you, it makes all sorts of stomach contents re-emerge. Nasty! It also made lunch really unappetizing.
After lunch I joined in on the Compound Cleanup Day, which happens once every quarter, and is where all of the staff and many volunteers come out and beautify the compound. Today that included taking revenge on the fire ants by pouring boiling water around and on the mounds (luckily not my job) and taking down some old enclosures (my job). With Lenore, Maree, Josh and Jessie, we dug out the concrete at the bottom of some old enclosure panels, then knocked the panels over and sledgehammered the concrete off the bottom so we could re-use them. I learned that I definitely should not try to sledgehammer ever again in my life. I could do all of ten swings and then I was done... After three hours, we had gotten three panels done (much quicker than the previous pace of one every 4 hours) and had a system going.
 |
| Kizmet is to the left, and Max and Christian are lying down right next to each other, after some really cute face rubbing and chuffing. |
An update on my poison ivy: My mother overnighted me some Ivy Dry, so I will be very happily using that before I go to sleep tonight. It has spread up my shoulders and onto my chest, as well as onto my stomach. It is also all around my ankles which are swollen and stocky and now look like "cankles." There is also some on my knees and creeping up my legs (which I don't really understand). My face has gotten a little worse, as it has spread across my cheekbone and some appeared on my chin and ears today. Basically, I look like one giant red, bumpy rash. Yay! I also found my first tick today (ew) which embedded itself on my upper thigh. I cut it out to make sure I got the head. Fun times! Hoping to actually sleep tonight.
~Rich With Life~
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Day 3: Flyspray, Mice and Vet Visit!
Today was quite interesting... Started my day with fly spraying the tigers. That's right, fly spraying. Flies apparently love to eat the tiger's (and lions) ears, so every day someone has to go out and tempt them over to the fence and then fly spray their ears. So I walk out to the food prep building (a little smelly dinky shack with a cooler, some tables and knives) and grab a hunk of rancid pork, chop it up and throw it in a bag (they love any meat, but the smellier the better). I then went in search of the fly spray and was surprised to find that they use bronco- the same stuff I put on my horses. So then I got to get up close and personal with each and every one of the tigers, feeding them off of treat sticks and spraying their ears while they are distracted. They don't really mind but won't come up to the fence without some tempting tidbits. My favorite couple of tigers are Rajiji, Kizmet and Mona- Rajiji can be very temperamental but he just has these very deep eyes and always talks to you. Kizmet and Mona both always come up to the fence and rub and chuff at you affectionately. Here is Kizmet:
In the den house behind her you can see one of her enclosure mates- Max, who was one of the few tigers who would not come out. I pride myself in that I got all but three of the big cats today, which is a lot more than usually refuse to come out- I'm sure that was more due to the rancid pork than me...but I can still pretend they like me. :)
So after the flyspraying was done, I got to do some enrichment with all of the small cats. This was tying a dead mouse (donated from one of the local laboratories) to the end of a string attached to a bamboo pole- a fishing pole if you will. I then dangled it outside of their enclosures, trying to tempt them into running, jumping and attacking it as they would in the wild. Interestingly, only one of the caracals was even slightly interested in it, while almost all of the servals and ocelots LOVED it. I had some really excited cats, including Renee, the three legged ocelot,who chased me around the enclosure and did a fantastic job getting the mice off the string. One ocelot, Magoo,was more interested in the string than the mouse- he would get the mouse off, drop it safely inside the enclosure, and continue to grab the string and play tug of war with me until he lost his grip. Too cute!
Unfortunately, dead mice smell kind of funny, and after spending a couple hours with them, including occasionally tearing them into bits for the cats and tying them onto strings, my lunch meat sandwhich was just not appetizing... all I could smell was mice, and kept imagining that my turkey was mouse meat... yum. Needless to say, I am starting to understand why the keepers are vegetarians! About lunch time I realized how badly my poison ivy had gotten... both my arms are covered, though my right arm is super swollen and rashy. It started to creep farther up my arms as the day went on, and it also showed up on my face.
So I am pretty itchy! If you look on my wrist you can see these two really nasty bug bites I have which are pus-y- the other interns looked at it and thought that it might have been fire ants. After talking about these, of course we jinxed someone. Unfortunately that someone was Geoff (the guy whose couch I am staying on). He got attacked while on a tour near the end of the day and went into mild anaphylactic shock, had to go to the hospital, etc. Poor guy... I ended up driving him home.
After lunch, the vet came out! Every Wednesday the vet comes out, drops a couple of animals and does physicals if there isn't any sort of emergency to be checked on. Today they did physicals on Mary Stewart (a caracal) and Oliver (an ocelot-Renee's enclosure mate). Knowing that most of the interns/externs are pre-vet or very interested in exotics, they make sure we all got to at least watch some part of the process, whether it was the dropping of the animal or the physical itself. Luckily, they called the interns: Josh, Kristen, Rachel and Melanie, and myself to come watch, and help with, the physical on Oliver. This was incredibly cool. Since they don't have any fancy medical equipment, they take heart rate, respiration rate and temperature every 5 minutes to monitor his process- the interns and I got to do this, which was awesome. For anyone who is interested, the temperature was right around 100, heart rate between 90 and 100, respiration rate around 35/40. The vet used a combination of 3 drugs to dart him and put him under, though I missed the exact names. They then inserted a needle into his bladder to try and get some urine, took a blood sample, checked for any stiffness in the joints or unnatural growths, took the weight, checked his ears and teeth, gave him advantix (for large cats (LOL)), a rabies shot (the cat version- nothing has been studied or tested for exotics so this is the best there is), and a second vaccine whose name I unfortunately missed. On a side note, the vet did tell me that they gave ferret distemper shot to the tigers, because the ferret version of the vaccine is more stable than the dog version- all three species get canine distemper. Anyway, she then gave him another drug to bring him out of anasthesia, and they popped him back in the dog crate before he woke up.
Needless to say, this was probably the coolest experience of my life. I got to pet and feel an ocelot! The rest of my day was much less exciting- I climbed up on top of one of the enclosures and cut down as many branches as I could get from the two HUGE tree limbs which had fallen on top of a servals cage. This was the serval I had a picture of yesterday- Santana. He was pretty wigged about me being up there, but behaved himself well. Unfortunately the two big limbs were embedded in the chain link and without a chain saw, they were not coming out! But we did get all the rest of the weight off of the cage, which made the enclosure much safer.
We cleaned up everything, I drove Geoff back, made him some dinner (he is still feeling pretty bad from all the drugs they gave him), and am now relaxing! Going to call my sun and stars ASAP. :)
~Rich With Life~
So after the flyspraying was done, I got to do some enrichment with all of the small cats. This was tying a dead mouse (donated from one of the local laboratories) to the end of a string attached to a bamboo pole- a fishing pole if you will. I then dangled it outside of their enclosures, trying to tempt them into running, jumping and attacking it as they would in the wild. Interestingly, only one of the caracals was even slightly interested in it, while almost all of the servals and ocelots LOVED it. I had some really excited cats, including Renee, the three legged ocelot,who chased me around the enclosure and did a fantastic job getting the mice off the string. One ocelot, Magoo,was more interested in the string than the mouse- he would get the mouse off, drop it safely inside the enclosure, and continue to grab the string and play tug of war with me until he lost his grip. Too cute!
Unfortunately, dead mice smell kind of funny, and after spending a couple hours with them, including occasionally tearing them into bits for the cats and tying them onto strings, my lunch meat sandwhich was just not appetizing... all I could smell was mice, and kept imagining that my turkey was mouse meat... yum. Needless to say, I am starting to understand why the keepers are vegetarians! About lunch time I realized how badly my poison ivy had gotten... both my arms are covered, though my right arm is super swollen and rashy. It started to creep farther up my arms as the day went on, and it also showed up on my face.
After lunch, the vet came out! Every Wednesday the vet comes out, drops a couple of animals and does physicals if there isn't any sort of emergency to be checked on. Today they did physicals on Mary Stewart (a caracal) and Oliver (an ocelot-Renee's enclosure mate). Knowing that most of the interns/externs are pre-vet or very interested in exotics, they make sure we all got to at least watch some part of the process, whether it was the dropping of the animal or the physical itself. Luckily, they called the interns: Josh, Kristen, Rachel and Melanie, and myself to come watch, and help with, the physical on Oliver. This was incredibly cool. Since they don't have any fancy medical equipment, they take heart rate, respiration rate and temperature every 5 minutes to monitor his process- the interns and I got to do this, which was awesome. For anyone who is interested, the temperature was right around 100, heart rate between 90 and 100, respiration rate around 35/40. The vet used a combination of 3 drugs to dart him and put him under, though I missed the exact names. They then inserted a needle into his bladder to try and get some urine, took a blood sample, checked for any stiffness in the joints or unnatural growths, took the weight, checked his ears and teeth, gave him advantix (for large cats (LOL)), a rabies shot (the cat version- nothing has been studied or tested for exotics so this is the best there is), and a second vaccine whose name I unfortunately missed. On a side note, the vet did tell me that they gave ferret distemper shot to the tigers, because the ferret version of the vaccine is more stable than the dog version- all three species get canine distemper. Anyway, she then gave him another drug to bring him out of anasthesia, and they popped him back in the dog crate before he woke up.
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| We are all feeling how soft his coat is, and pulling out fleas (ew!). |
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| More flee catching. The vet is in the back, and the three upfront are Rachel, Melanie and Kristen. |
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| They let us take temperatures, heart rates and respiration rates. Josh is taking the heart rate. Lenore (a keeper) can be seen on the right, as well as the vet (blond). |
Needless to say, this was probably the coolest experience of my life. I got to pet and feel an ocelot! The rest of my day was much less exciting- I climbed up on top of one of the enclosures and cut down as many branches as I could get from the two HUGE tree limbs which had fallen on top of a servals cage. This was the serval I had a picture of yesterday- Santana. He was pretty wigged about me being up there, but behaved himself well. Unfortunately the two big limbs were embedded in the chain link and without a chain saw, they were not coming out! But we did get all the rest of the weight off of the cage, which made the enclosure much safer.
We cleaned up everything, I drove Geoff back, made him some dinner (he is still feeling pretty bad from all the drugs they gave him), and am now relaxing! Going to call my sun and stars ASAP. :)
~Rich With Life~
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Carolina Tiger Rescue- Days 1 & 2
So many things to write about! First of all, I made it to North Carolina alright! I met the guys I am staying with- Geoff, Bill, Josh and Justin (though Justin is actually just another temporary person sleeping on the other couch they have). They are all really nice guys, though a few of them are pretty far from my normal crowd... Geoff works at the tiger rescue, Josh is a high school science teacher, Bill is looking for a job doing something I haven't quite figured out, and Justin is a cinematography guy- he wants to get into doing PR for indie races. Some of them actually met each other the day they moved in, so it is a pretty interesting dynamic. Most of the time they are playing Call of Duty or Rockband! I feel pretty okay here, though just kind of an imposition, for they are in a small townhouse and I had to pile all my crap in a corner. It just isn't really a bid enough place for 5 people! But for now it will do...
So now a little about the last two days:
Monday- Day 1!
I left at 7:45 to go get gas (I used all but the last little bit of my tank getting down here) and head to the rescue, which is about a 20 minute drive on 5-lane highways. I started work at 8:30 am, and was pleasantly surprised that the keepers remembered me. The three keepers are Ed, Lenore and Lauren. Lenore is definitely my favorite- she has a very upbeat personality in a 5'4" body, and loves to help out, give direction, answer questions, etc. She has amazing patience. Ed is a very stoic guy, as opposite of Lenore as you can get! He is 6' something, with red hair and a slight beard, and I have never seen him smile. He is always serious, but always nice. Lauren I have only briefly met, though she is the oldest of the three, probably in her late 30's, whereas the others are late 20's, early 30's. I started my day helping with preparing the food for the day. Binturongs (more on them later) are primarily fruit eaters, though they get some meat protein and vegetables, and they all have to have fruit and meat cut up for them every morning.
I then loaded up in the back of one of the really beat-up pick up trucks that the rescue has. Almost everything they own is donated, including the vehicles, freezers, and power tools, so it keeps life interesting. Anyway, feeding basically involves going around to all of the small animal cages (ocelots, servals, bobcats, binturongs, cougars and caracals) and putting chicken thighs, breasts, legs, etc. through their feeding slots and into the inclosure. Each animal gets a piece injected with vitamin syrup (mostly glucosamine) about once a week. They all get different amounts of food based on their size, breed, and activity level. The keepers monitor them very closely and track exactly what they eat, how much, what is left in their enclosure, that sort of thing.
Now for the tigers (of which there are many) and the lions (of which there are three), they get whole chickens, anywhere from 1-3. They have to be "shifted" into different parts of the enclosures via shift gates, which have a handle outside the cage for people to move them easily and safely. The shifting keeps them from fighting with each other over the food or gulping the food down too fast. The shift gates also allow for easy and safe cage cleaning. Almost all the tigers are on at least 1/2 acre of land, which is fantastic. Their enclosures contain den boxes, trees, large water tubs for bathing, and sometimes other tigers/lions if they have proven to be social animals. They also have 15+ foot fences surrounding their enclosures, and most of the big cat enclosures do NOT have feeding tubes... which means whole chickens have to be flung over a 15+ foot fence. I am not exactly a strong person, and chickens tend to be both slippery and hard to find an appropriate lobbing position. Needless to say, I beat a lot of chickens around the 10 foot fence mark, and made a lot of really hungry tigers pretty pissed off. Ed took pity on me and helped me fling a couple, and Lenore (who has the same problem I do most of the time) decided to drive the truck a little closer to the fence when possible so I could chuck them in from the fence bed. We finally finished feeding all 66 of the animals on the compound and headed back to the main house/building. At that point in time I was covered in chicken blood and juice, and tons of fruit goo. And getting really hungry.
Anyway, lunch came at 12:30 after Lenore gave me a run down on the enrichment they do at the rescue to stimulate natural behaviors and keep the animals from getting too bored/domesticated. They try to do enrichment with each animal at least every other day, in either scent (hidden food, perfumes, animal musks), taste (different textures, treats and foods), visual (mirrors, stuffed animals), auditory (playing recordings of other animals, either in pain or challenging) or physical (new objects- tires, kegs, toys). I scarfed down the only food I had brought with me that was a quick fix- tomato soup (and choked it down, I was miserably hot already) and some granola bars. After lunch I got to do enrichment, which was incredibly fun. Lenore gave me a stuffed black leopard and a mirror and sent me out to all the small animals on the compound to use one or the other with them. Most of them had little to no reaction, some coming up to the fence to say hi to me (though of course I cannot touch them) but not having any interest in the mirror or leopard. One of the caracals, Savage, had the best response to the mirror, stalking up to it and staring extremely intently at his reflection, looking very spooked to see himself there! Others however, like Collins the bobcat, went nuts over the stuffed toy and chased me around the perimeter of the enclosure (whilst I was cavorting like an idiot, making the stuffed animal appear to be running, and making growling noises). Two of the three cougars also had a similar reaction- they stalked, leaped and ran all around the enclosure trying to catch the leopard (me). The cougar thing did freak me out a little bit, as I spent a lot of my life in Colorado where cougars are really bad news (and they do not make good pets!).
That was really the rest of my day- at each enrichment interaction, I had to mark down what the animal did, how they reacted and on a scale of 0-3 how much they responded. They then have a database that each interaction gets placed into- this tracks each individual animals likes/dislikes and what they best react to. Once the day was over, I went back to the apartment and played rock band with the boys, and then went to the first bar of my life (they convinced me) to go play Trivia. I didn't know the answer to a single question and felt pretty awkward the entire night, since it was like 15 people that I didn't know. I slept like the dead on the couch though!
The following are some random pictures I took of the animals.
Today was a lot more physical- I started out preparing the food for the binturongs and kinkajous (adorable evil little monkey-cat-creatures), and then went out with one of the interns, Melanie to feed all the binturongs, including the fish oil pill they get to keep their coat and skin condition optimal. We also fed pills to Rajaji, a tiger, which he managed to drop out of his mouth while eating every single bite of chicken. We then had to repeat this until we got the pills down! Next came a tub cleaning- me and Melanie shifted Rajaji out of his main enclosure and dumped, scrubbed and refilled his HUGE swimming/bathing tub. The tigers like to poop in their water, so it got pretty nasty! Tiger poop does not smell very good. Now Rajaji is probably one of my favorite tigers, because he is super talkative. He loves to "chuff" at people, and if you "chuff" at him (by blowing air out and making your cheeks vibrate), he will talk back. He has beautiful eyes, and is a favorite on the tours. Once the tub was done, I did enrichment for 9 of the tigers/lions by placing meat in boxes and throwing them into their enclosures, and seeing if they could/wanted to hunt them down and rip them open. The tigers I got to interact with were Kizmet, Christan and Max (who are all together), Rajaji, Mona & Moki, and the lions Sebastian, Tarzan and Sheba.
I know this is getting long, but I promise I am almost finished!
I helped pull down a tree off of an enclosure (it had fallen a couple weeks ago in a storm) with a handful of the summer-long interns- melanie, kristen, josh and katie, and some volunteers. After that we ripped the rotted boards off of the top of Rajaji's den box, after cutting through tons and tons of poison ivy vines which covered it. I wore gloves that went up to my elbows and washed my arms at least 6 times today, but I am sure tomorrow is going to be awful... It was very hot (though not as bad as yesterday), and I was soaked with sweat by the time we were halfway finished just clearing the viens away. We cut some new boards for the top, and got on all of 3 before it began to downpour. Of course we had all the power tools out, and clippers, saws, hammers, etc. all around the enclosure, and they had to be removed from being out in the rain, so all four of us that were working on this got soaked to the bone, and had to ride back to the main house in the rain. The compound closes down when it is lightning outside, so that in case a tree falls, damages an enclosure and an animal gets out, no one is inside to be compromised. So we all hung out in the entry way, wringing out our clothes. Once the rain stopped, we went back out to our projects, which is where the end of the day found me. The roof is only about 1/3 of the way done, so I assume I will be working on that tomorrow- though it seems like many projects here are started and less are finished.
I was very ready (and smelly) for my shower tonight! The boys just left for a movie and for the first time since I got here I get some alone time and some peace and quiet. And thanks to the fact that they got internet today, I can update you all (and do some work on my part-time job).
Off to bed for me!
~Rich With Life~
So now a little about the last two days:
Monday- Day 1!
I left at 7:45 to go get gas (I used all but the last little bit of my tank getting down here) and head to the rescue, which is about a 20 minute drive on 5-lane highways. I started work at 8:30 am, and was pleasantly surprised that the keepers remembered me. The three keepers are Ed, Lenore and Lauren. Lenore is definitely my favorite- she has a very upbeat personality in a 5'4" body, and loves to help out, give direction, answer questions, etc. She has amazing patience. Ed is a very stoic guy, as opposite of Lenore as you can get! He is 6' something, with red hair and a slight beard, and I have never seen him smile. He is always serious, but always nice. Lauren I have only briefly met, though she is the oldest of the three, probably in her late 30's, whereas the others are late 20's, early 30's. I started my day helping with preparing the food for the day. Binturongs (more on them later) are primarily fruit eaters, though they get some meat protein and vegetables, and they all have to have fruit and meat cut up for them every morning.
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| These are the binturong trays. |
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| This is a binturong hanging out by his feeding tray. |
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| Kizmet eating. |
Anyway, lunch came at 12:30 after Lenore gave me a run down on the enrichment they do at the rescue to stimulate natural behaviors and keep the animals from getting too bored/domesticated. They try to do enrichment with each animal at least every other day, in either scent (hidden food, perfumes, animal musks), taste (different textures, treats and foods), visual (mirrors, stuffed animals), auditory (playing recordings of other animals, either in pain or challenging) or physical (new objects- tires, kegs, toys). I scarfed down the only food I had brought with me that was a quick fix- tomato soup (and choked it down, I was miserably hot already) and some granola bars. After lunch I got to do enrichment, which was incredibly fun. Lenore gave me a stuffed black leopard and a mirror and sent me out to all the small animals on the compound to use one or the other with them. Most of them had little to no reaction, some coming up to the fence to say hi to me (though of course I cannot touch them) but not having any interest in the mirror or leopard. One of the caracals, Savage, had the best response to the mirror, stalking up to it and staring extremely intently at his reflection, looking very spooked to see himself there! Others however, like Collins the bobcat, went nuts over the stuffed toy and chased me around the perimeter of the enclosure (whilst I was cavorting like an idiot, making the stuffed animal appear to be running, and making growling noises). Two of the three cougars also had a similar reaction- they stalked, leaped and ran all around the enclosure trying to catch the leopard (me). The cougar thing did freak me out a little bit, as I spent a lot of my life in Colorado where cougars are really bad news (and they do not make good pets!).
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| Star, the smallest of the three cougars. She is rubbing affectionately on the fence near me. |
That was really the rest of my day- at each enrichment interaction, I had to mark down what the animal did, how they reacted and on a scale of 0-3 how much they responded. They then have a database that each interaction gets placed into- this tracks each individual animals likes/dislikes and what they best react to. Once the day was over, I went back to the apartment and played rock band with the boys, and then went to the first bar of my life (they convinced me) to go play Trivia. I didn't know the answer to a single question and felt pretty awkward the entire night, since it was like 15 people that I didn't know. I slept like the dead on the couch though!
The following are some random pictures I took of the animals.
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| One of the servals, Santana. |
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| An ocelot napping in a tree. |
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| Two caracals, Gabe and Savage. |
I know this is getting long, but I promise I am almost finished!
I helped pull down a tree off of an enclosure (it had fallen a couple weeks ago in a storm) with a handful of the summer-long interns- melanie, kristen, josh and katie, and some volunteers. After that we ripped the rotted boards off of the top of Rajaji's den box, after cutting through tons and tons of poison ivy vines which covered it. I wore gloves that went up to my elbows and washed my arms at least 6 times today, but I am sure tomorrow is going to be awful... It was very hot (though not as bad as yesterday), and I was soaked with sweat by the time we were halfway finished just clearing the viens away. We cut some new boards for the top, and got on all of 3 before it began to downpour. Of course we had all the power tools out, and clippers, saws, hammers, etc. all around the enclosure, and they had to be removed from being out in the rain, so all four of us that were working on this got soaked to the bone, and had to ride back to the main house in the rain. The compound closes down when it is lightning outside, so that in case a tree falls, damages an enclosure and an animal gets out, no one is inside to be compromised. So we all hung out in the entry way, wringing out our clothes. Once the rain stopped, we went back out to our projects, which is where the end of the day found me. The roof is only about 1/3 of the way done, so I assume I will be working on that tomorrow- though it seems like many projects here are started and less are finished.
I was very ready (and smelly) for my shower tonight! The boys just left for a movie and for the first time since I got here I get some alone time and some peace and quiet. And thanks to the fact that they got internet today, I can update you all (and do some work on my part-time job).
Off to bed for me!
~Rich With Life~
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