Happy Turkey Day!

Hey everyone, Happy Thanksgiving! Today was also a pretty good day although I got out pretty late and missed out on the whole turkey thing. However, I actually don't like turkey all that much and I got some time to call my house today and talked to ALL my relatives. In fact the phone only rang once and was then answered by a tiny voice....not my mom's or dad's...I was a little confused and ever said "oops I think I have the wrong number" to which the tiny voice replied "I am Caitlyn!" (my cousin for those of you who don't know). She sounds so grown up!!! and so did my other cousin David. I was bummed to not get to see them since it's been a while and I'm always worried they will forget about me. Also my cousin April told me that my Aunt Janet had told her about Henry by saying "Cori has this deer with no legs that she keeps in a bag".....which is pretty much the funniest thing I have ever heard and made me realise that telling people things in my family is a little like playing Telephone, with hilarious results. Anyway, a special hello to call of my relatives reading this! I will be home this weekend and I am in a really good mood because 5 days of work in a row is NOTHING now that I have done up to like 10 with only one day off. OH also Dara (and company) are AWESOME and before they left to go to Dara's mother's house for Thanksgiving, she snuck some pot pie, apple crisp, and icecream into my fridge/freezer with a note. I LOVE her. It totaly made my day.

Ok three more things to keep this interesting:

1. Last night I decided to try out my new sound making alarm clock thing set on "Thunderstorm" and it gave me REALLY WEIRD dreams, including one about a girl with scary ridiculously long fingernails who chased me and I woke up SERIOUSLY freaked out...although now it does seem less scary somehow...

2. I drank a LOT of redbull today in order to get a LOT done such as putting new shavings in like 3 cages while still getting the normal stuff done and I have to say

3. Gratuitous picture of Henry coquettishly eating a leaf:

Today I am 23

Thank you everyone who said happy birthday :) I feel quite loved. Today was actually a pretty good birthday. When I came downstairs in the morning Dara was up (she usually sleeps during most of the day because she does all the veterinary work at night) and had put out a present for me!! I know! I have only known them like a month but they were some nice gifts :) and the card was a picture of me and Henry which was really cute. My favorite gift by FAR was the alarm clock she got me with white noise!! (Sorry mom! I hope you didn't get me one!) She said she had had it for herself but hadn't used it and it is AWESOME because it has like a thousand other noises which have been amusing me for minutes now. Here are the sound options (because you are dying to know): ocean surf, north woods, thunderstorm, white noise, night train, spring rain, island surf, bonfire, stream, hidden cove, wind, asian garden (lol?), song birds, harbor swell, bamboo chimes, summer night, cooling fan, rain forest, jet lag, voice memo.

LOL most of those are the same thing and at least half of them will make me have to pee if I use them. Also JUST NOW as I was posting this Dara and Willow came up with a MINI CAKE and sang to me!!!! They are so awesome! So my day was really nice despite not being home.

Anyway I would like to use this post to ask something of everyone reading this that I have been meaning to. I know Christmas is still a little way off but if any of you were thinking of getting me something I was thinking that instead you could make a donation to Wildlife in Crisis as my gift. These people are doing a really great thing here and often the money comes out of their own pockets so I would love it if I could help out as my Christmas present :) Anyway, I'll post more cute stuff later!

Weekends off!!

I think I actually already posted this but I had this weekend off and should now be having them off regularly which will make me much more of a happy camper at this internship. I am also coming home next weekend so even though I will miss Thanksgiving, hopefully I will have a chance to see my family and friends. That also means I will be home for my Meghan's birthday :) since it falls on a Saturday. So anyway, Meghan came this weekend which was nice for several reasons. Obviously because I got to see her and she also got to see where I work and all my little mangled animal friends, but also because it kind of helped cure the feeling that I am living in a little isolated bubble here. She also brought me BIRTHDAY PRESENTS!!1! I got Walle, which we promptly watched, and also a shell anklet which is like the one we wore for like 2 years in highschool. They broke a while ago and she had just gotten a new one and I mentioned I would like to get one again too, so it will be on my ankle until it falls off :) It was a really perfect present actually since I like having something to remind me that people in the outside world still love me even when animals legs get chewed...off....I feel like no one should ever have to have that be a problem... Anyway, I also got (on the same day) MY PRESENT FROM SARAH!!! Equally awesome it was a care package, adorably delivered to my door by Willow who then helped me read the card (glad you didn't write anything obscene, Sarah). Anyway, it included PUMPKIN MUFFINS which I have already eaten most of, candy, hand lotion which is sorely needed, 23 birthday candles, and my personal favorite "animal crackers for when you need to bite something's head off". Thanks Sarah!! I will probably be putting all of those items into use immediately..the ones that aren't already in my stomache that is. Anyway in every post from now on (or in those when I remember to) I'm going to put a short animal bio so you can all learn about the animals I will be spending 5 more months nursing back to health. You have already met the turkeys, Henry the sad stumpy deer, and Delilah the semi-quadriplegic possum, so today the star will beeeee:


Name: Woody/Woodette
Species: Wood Duck
Likes: baths, playing with the gulls food and water, knocking things down, bullying the gulls, and pooping on anything not covered in newspaper
Dislikes: Peter, being picked up, and being called a she for the first several months of his life

Meet Woody the sassy wood duck. Formerly known as Woodette because it was believed that she was a girl, he is one of multiple gender confused animals living at WIC (more on that later). He bullies all the other animals regardless of how much bigger they are than him, HATES Peter for no obvious reason, andHere is a short video of his/her sassiness.

Yesterday and Meet the People I Work For

Hi everone! Tomorrow is my first weekend off in...I think 10 days so I am really excited AND Meghan is coming so I'm excited times 2 :) I think I will be much much happier after I have weekends off regularly, both for the obvious reason of having more time off, but also KNOWING when I'm going to have time off. The past few weeks have been really hard because I had no idea when I would get off next and I was really wiped out. Anyway, yesterday was also a good day because I got to leave from 2 to 4 in order to speak at a school about what we do at wildlife in crisis and show them some animals. It was AWESOME. It was an elementary school group called "Kids who Care" which was already really cute and they were very attentive and had cute questions and comments (all along the lines of "THIS ONE TIME I SAW AN ANIMAL AND IT....etc") I brought the box turtle with amputated hind legs (attacked by a dog) and Mary Jane (seagull with an amputated wing from a bad break). So it was a lot of fun and I think they enjoyed it too. Alright so part two of this entry is an introduction to the people here since I keep mentioning them and I don't think I ever officially explained who they all are:

Dara - Head of Wildlife in Crisis, hilariously disillusioned in people, strict but understanding and generally awesome. Favorite quotes: "Screw that! I wouldn't give someone my kidney. With my luck it would go to a rapist or a murdered" and "I wish people would just stop fucking with the animals"

Peter - Dara's wonderful husband, works from home and helps SOOO much at the end of the day by taking out trash and moping and generally chatting, buys my cocoa and munchkins from dunkin donuts on a weekly basis (I LOVE HIM!) and also master of understatements. Favorite quotes: "Yeah sooo anyway the girls boyfriend kinda moved in here...and was really creepy....and then he stole stuff....so that was....bad"

Willow - Adorable 7 year old daughter of Dara and Peter who "helps" me occationally with chores and just generally makes my day by saying funny things. Favorite quotes (so far): "Can turkeys hear?" and "I decided we should name the duck Fredrick Freddy"

There is also the ex-intern Anna who comes in and LOVES the birds, Julie an older woman who comes in who LOVES the raccoons and occationally puts mysterious things in the cages (like a phonebook in the raccoon cage for them to TEAR APART UTTERLY), Marissa who is very quiet and nice and is awesome at pretty much everything, and Barbara who LOVES the seagulls and gives them way too many treats. There are some other volunteers as well but that is the basic cast. Next post: Animal bios! :)

Picky Animals and a Good Day

So today was actually a pretty good day for a few reasons. It started out a little rocky because all of the outdoor hoses are officially frozen and unusable so we now have to carry around buckets of warm water from outside...which is..heavy. I also started at 6:45 instead of 7 which helped in getting all the morning stuff done semi on-time. So the good! -

1. Nothing died!
2. Nothing lost a leg! (this has happened twice and is NOT ok)
3. I felt like I knew what I was doing for (almost) everything
4. The turkeys left me alone for the most part
5. Dara gave me Saturday and Sunday off and MEGHAN IS COMING TO VISIT!!!! :)
6. Got a package from my Aunt Janet with my birthday present in it (awesome cold weather clothes, thank you Auntie Janet!!!)
7. Dara's little girl Willow followed me around at the end of the day protecting me from the turkeys and "helping" by breaking up the ice from the water bowls and randomly yelling "oh no! run!" which was hilarious

Anyway everything is going pretty well and I'm slowly getting faster at doing things so maybe one day I will get everything done on time. Part two of this post will be describing the hilariously picky habits of some of the resident animals:

- the barn swallow will not eat canned meal worms
- the heron will only eat fresh small fish
- the duck likes to sit on the cage next to the door (and poop there)
- the birds in the outside songbird cage like the yellow colored pellets best...not the green...not the pink
- the owls must get (respectively for each cage), 3 small white mice, 6 medium mice, 16 large mice, AND my personal favorite for Woodsy and Bubo, 5 large mice and 12 small silky white mice LINED UP along the side of the table FROM LARGEST TO SMALLEST

these animals are living better than some people...but most of them have had a tough life so I guess its ok :)

OMG TURKEYS

Just quickly I need to vent...THE TURKEYS ARE DRIVING ME NUTS!! They follow me wherever I go and peck the bags and trays I'm carrying (not fearful of me AT ALL despite repeated mentions about Thanksgiving coming up on my part). They peck at the bars of whatever cage I am in. If I put anything down they RUN to it immediately and try to eat/drink/poop on/ or tip it over. But at least I can escape from them in the house...or CAN I?! This morning I woke up to an incessant tapping noise coming from (it sounded like) somewhere in the house. I got up and went into the kitchen where it was extra loud and finally looked up...the turkeys have found the skylights. One of them looked down and me, gave an excited gobble and started pecking the skylight with renewed vigor. For my birthday please get me some sort of anti-turkey devise please. Also seriously mom and dad if you are listening, could you find me a white-noise maker to help me sleep? I have been using a fan, but it's becoming more and more impractical since it's already below freezing at night. Oh wait, my parents are in JAMAICA right now...where it WARM and there are NO TURKEYS :( Well anyway, I am in need of a break and hopefully will get another day off soon. Oh, I have to be here for Thanksgiving :( which I am really bummed about because I haven't seen most of my family for like a year which is ridiculous, however, Thanksgiving is also Dara's (the wildlife clinic owner's) mother's birthday, so she asked me to work that day in exchange for Christmas which I WILL be home for thank God. Anyway, I will also be home the weekend after Thanksgiving/ my birthday and will supposedly have weekends off after that. I will probably be visiting home/NYC/Jersey/and maybe Philly on weekends because it is FREEZING here and seriously...the turkeys are making me lose it...like one is watching me write this right now..they are like gobbling voyeurs...anyway, that's all for now!

Possums are Thirsty...and adorable

Alright, for a quick but upbeat post! Two things made my day slightly better at the end...

1. Dara told me that I was really good with Henry and the baby possum (see below) and that I should do them all the time and no one else if possible because it was obvious that they were most comfortable with me :) That made me feel less like total crap about the fact that I really am struggling to keep up the pace here...I'm just not a speedy person and I think (oh no!) I might be a lot like my mom in needing time to think and not liking the chaos that this job entails... Anyway

2. I am in LOVE with the below baby possum who is now a ME only animal. Her name is Delilah as of yesterday (when Dara told me her injuries aren't like threatening so I decided it was safe to name her). I knew she was a girl before Dara told me because she CLEARLY has pretty little eyelashes and is otherwise just the cutest thing I've ever seen :) Anyway, she is doing alright but Dara thinks she must have neurological damage because she isn't moving very much. She was attacked by a dog and has a head injury and her cheek was torn open but hopefully should heal...however if she does have neurological damage she might become another permanent resident :( She has to be hand-fed mushed up dog food and fruit flavored baby food 4 times a day while wrapped in a towel and is just the cutest thing I have ever seen when eating:

And here is me hand-feeding her (note her poor little torn up face):


AAAnd here is a bonus video of the other possums being cute and thirsty in the morning :)


Enough cute for now?

Today also = aweful.....ish

Well I thought I would be getting most of today off but I ended up shadowing the intern that came in for a bunch of things that she wanted me to change/make better. It was good because they are things I need to know and do, but it has put me back in the "oh my god, how am I going to do all these things and still eat and sleep?!" frame of mind...Aaaand now I'm off to do laundry for the clinic (and myself) and also do some shopping. Tomorrow I'm hoping to catch a break earlier and take a nap because I'm starting to get scary homeless-person looking circles under my eyes. OH and I totally forgot to post about WHAT made yesterday crappy (other than being really tired): I had never yet accidentally let a bird out of a cage and I let TWO out yesterday (luckily indoors and I caught them right away) and the other AWFUL thing that happened was that I went out to find check on the woodpecker who was being kept in an outdoor cage in the morning and found him on the ground MISSING A LEG which was a NEW DEVELOPMENT :( Turns out he had been perching on one of the mesh windows and a raccoon stuck its hands through and just tore his leg off...I KNOW, I thought raccoons were cute and loveable! but apparently they are often terrible like that. So needless to say a bit of a bummer and the bird later died, although I'm surprised he even lasted the night after having a limb ripped off. Ok, cute post next! Promise!

p.s. last bit of complaining I promise, but my hands are slowly turning into leather gloves...leather gloves that are being slowly gnawed to bits by daily mishaps with doors, talons, beek, and knives....hmm picture? I think so

Ooooo we'll make it a game...like where's waldo? wheres the mishap?
Can you find:
A. The mishap with the knife
B. The mishap with the screen door
C. soot from the pellet stove still there from last night...oops
D. The incident with the angry saw-whet owl
E. Old scar from where my rabbit scratched me

If you find all 5 you win....buying me hand lotion..congrats!

Yesterday = AWFUL

Yesterday actually went alright, all things considered, but I am so exhausted from it that maybe it seems more awful than it was. It was my first day doing everything (EVERYTHING) completely by myself with no other interns or volunteers. I have already had about 4 days of me being the only intern which is actually fine as long as I get some company and help from volunteers, but without anyone....well it's doable, but it means no break for about 12 hours and no company. Actually Dara always comes down at around 12 or 1 now which is very nice and she also seemed to sense my distress (more at being alone all day than anything else) and asked a volunteer to come in for a few hours in the late after noon...so actually I lied, I wasn't completely alone all day...but still it was most of the day and the woman who came only did the seagull cages. Actually the woman was really nice and helpful (her name is Barbara) but she had a weird obsession with the gulls and kept talking baby-talk to them. Now generally I am all for talking to the animals, but it was still a little weird because these gulls (except Mary Jane) are not very cute..and in fact one of them is OBSCENELY loud all day. Maybe I will add a video of that later. Anyway that is my vent, but for the nexy few days I will have it easy and I also have Saturday off (woo!). More updates later on something cute!

Alright, it's time all of you met Henry. Henry is the love of my life currently and he is a little silly looking so please don't laugh! He is a young deer who came in as a baby with a horrible deformity. His legs end at the knee and he has little hooflets there but he cannot walk. His mother was accommodating her poor little fawn by lying down to nurse him (normal deer always nurse standing up) and so he was brought here and has been here ever since. After meeting him I really wanted to take him outside because otherwise he basically sits in his cage all day just watching us walk back and forth with his big eyes. So Dara let me take him around in a sling so he can see the outdoors on nice days. Here is a picture of my with my deer purse!

Dara (the owner of the clinic) is trying to figure out a way to rig up something for him to either use as a wheel chair or something that hoists him from above so he can move around. Unfortunately he is a male deer and he already has little antler-etts and will become more agressive :( however right now he is the sweetest little soul you ever met and just wants to lick you and be loved. Here is a video of Henry being adorable:


If you have an idea for how to give him more mobility please feel free to suggest it! I already asked if we could put him on a skateboard :)

Bonus Henry action:

Car Boo-boo

Well I apologize but this will be yet another brief post that is not really animal related but I thought I would recount the story or my very first (minor don't worry!) car accident. It was last night literally as I was pulling out to come back to Connecticut at around 5pm on a raining gross evening. I had been obeying the RULES of the ROAD and had checked both ways before pulling out onto 62 off my street and (for those of you who know the area) someone came tearing around the corner from Middleton from the turn with no stop sign right next to my street. It happened ridiculously fast so I think I may have had a deer-in-the-headlights face on as she hit me, but she was both speeding and then hydroplaning so there was not a whole lot I could have done anyway. Luckily she didn't hit me very hard because she hit...basically ME since it was my driver side door and front wheel that took the brunt. But my airbag didn't even deploy so it wasn't all that hard an impact...just scary. Anyway, turns out it was a really belligerent 16 year old in her daddy's car who was more pissed about being late to the party she was going to than anything else...I was not amused. However, since I was all adrenaline-y and shaky I was really glad when EVERY NEIGHBOR IN THE 5 MILE AREA showed up (see video below of Dane Cook joke)...and to make a long story short the cops came and everyone was fine...but it was apparently my fault because I had been the one at a stop sign and it was thus my duty to see around corners and stop hydroplaning bitches with my...laser eyes I guess...Anyway, to end on a lighter note..the neighbors were EXACTLY like the below Dane Cook description of people and car accidents and here is the clip for those of you who don't know the skit:

Dane Cook Car Accident

That's all for now...more actual animal stories to come!

In Response to Emily and Stephie

1. On the HAWK'S right
and
2. my address is

C/O Wildlife in Crisis
44 Indian Valley Road
Weston, CT
06883

Angry Hawks and Need for Human Contact

So I'm going to actually make a good long post soon but I have been a little out of it. I actually came home for the past 2 days to recharge and I got to see Sarah and also Meghan who is now in Florida (jerk!). Anyway, I have but 3 complaints so far about this internship which is otherwise very cool: 1. Unending tiredness (which I assume will go away when I am in better shape) 2. Really horrifically dry skin on my hands from constant hand-washing and 3. Too little human contact resulting in more conversations with animals than I am comfortable with (don't worry, only the duck actually talks back). Anyway, if any of you are bored feel free to write me a letter or something so I remember that there is a world out there that is not filled with ill animals :( Otherwise though it has been really cool and I will give you a quick intro on how to force-feed a hawk...clearly a job skill you may need:

1. Open cage door and remove food and water bowls so they don't go flying all over the place in the mayhem
2. Get a nice heavy duty towel and maybe gloves (if you are a wimp)
3. Climb in dog carrier cage with angry hawk*
4. Throw towel over hawk and hope for the best
5. Locate the back and wings of hawk while avoiding the talons and beak which are also under there hiding somewhere
6. Get situated so that you are holding all pointy parts of the animal away from you
7. Pull angry, swaddled hawk out of carrier and basically sit on him
8. Find his head and unwrap it keeping talons wrapped up
9. Open beak (carefully and stick 2 fingers in it to keep it open while with the other hand grabbing a delicious dead mouse
10. Shove dead mouse down the RIGHT side of the throat and then push it down into the crop with the hand not dedicated to holding the beak open

Congratulations, you now know how to force-feed an angry hawk

* This is the step I actually had the most trouble with

Anyway, that's all for now!