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!

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~

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!)

Shadow (one of the black leopards), next to her water dish.

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.

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.

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~