Blunders, Bird Tackling, and Dog Parties

Today I made a lot of mistakes. No one here knows. But I did.

After about 4 people spent an hour cutting up 30 apples, 15 pears, 2 cantaloupes, a bag of grapes, 20 plums, 20 peaches, and measuring and dumping in 52 cups of dog food, 6 cans of cat food, 3 bags of corn, 20 ounces of fish and 20 ounces of venison, I took the 5 bowls of food out on a wagon to go deliver the meal to the bears and tipped the whole damn thing. Only one bowl's contents was left intact. I picked up as much as I could (it was hard to get 52 cups of dry dog food out of a pile of leaves and wood chips). I gathered what I could and gave it to the bears, who fought pretty viciously over the muddy, once-appetizing-looking fruit and meat.

pre-spilled bear food

I was also told to clean our adult squirrel's cage. I had never done it before, and he is a feisty little thing, so I was a bit apprehensive. Every time I opened the door to remove his dishes he tried to escape. All I needed to do was open the little door, get the food out, and close it. The rest of the cleaning would be easy since it had a slide-out bottom in which to place new newspapers. Well, I couldn't even do that right, because on my third time trying to get out his food dishes he jumped out of the open door straight into my face. He bounded off my horror-struck expression and onto the unsuspecting raptor patients' cage bars, and from there into an unoccupied but quite bird-poopy cage. I grabbed him, fearing he would bite me and we would have to put him down (as is the rule with all mammals), and threw him back into his cage like a Frisbee. He seemed offended. His normal behavior would be to inspect me and play about, but at this time he hid in his den box, only to return 30 minutes later when I replaced his nut tray.

the hooligan

I also did some things right today. I caught my first bird. A Bald Eagle. I had to hold him for about 5 minutes while someone replaced his bedding, which was quite the forearm workout. I also caught, held, and tube-fed a Great-Horned Owl. He was found starved. I didn't do so well with keeping his beak open, but I was pretty good at getting my fingers painfully clamped down on.

a Great-horned owl

We also released the last 3 bunnies we had today.

Last night I was going to go to sleep early, but instead my boss, Mark, invited us to his "dog party." He apparently has quite the heart for big dogs. He has 7, and as far as I could tell he has 5 Leonbergers. They are very cute, and very huge.



His house is about a half hour drive from the rehab center - straight into the woods. His nearest neighbors are 3 miles away. The land is beautiful. We missed the party, but got to meet his wife, dogs, and one of his friends, and his dog. He gave us a tour of his "alternative energy house." It is solar powered, and he is not connected to the "grid." He powers up a bunch of batteries from his solar panels, and has a generator for back-up. His energy bill is about $400 a year.

Mark's battery-powered house

He took us to his backyard, which is a a huge lake. Absolutely gorgeous. We stood out there in the cold for about a half hour doing bird calls, lisening to owls, looking at the stars (saw a shooting star), and laughing as one of the dogs went swimming repeatedly. We got home late, so again I did not get very much sleep.

Tomorrow is the last day any summer interns will be here.