Getting Comfortable

Hey everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't updated in awhile, things have been a little crazy since Rachel left and I've been on my own. The past week and a half has been basically figuring out how to do everything I had been doing with Rachel, just making the decisions myself. For example, doing something simple like cleaning the back of the vet center took no time at all with two people...but when you're doing it by yourself it takes so much longer just because you're doing everything.

Cleaning the lemur enclosure has been almost impossible to do alone because it is very intensive work. I can get the outside pens cleaned in no time, but the inside has to be scrubbed with Clorox wipes because the lemurs are dirty little jerks who put their hands all over the walls and get them gross. :D Yesterday I was cleaning them, went out to clean some tiger pens, came back to the lemurs and the areas I had literally just cleaned were already covered in dirty smudged hand prints. They're so rude. I just can't get a large enough amount of time needed to fully clean their inside before I'm needed somewhere else. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to.

But the exciting part of being the only intern here right now is that I'm finally getting comfortable in everything. I have been doing morning and night duties each day and am confident in administering the medicine and watering. I have even butchered by myself. Terrifying? Yes. But there was no one available to help me, so Derek (my boss) told me how exactly to deal with butchering a very large cow. Which is what this was. Huge. But I did it! And when I was gutting it, Heidi (my boss) came up to see how I was doing, and gave me a couple tips to help me finish it. Then she said the cow was pregnant when it died, so I pulled a full-term calf from the uterus. Sad, yes. But really cool and the calf was a nice meal to one of our tigers.

 I've also been able to give tours! I have given three tours so far by myself and I actually don't mind them. Yes, sometimes it can be a pain to stop what you're doing in the day to go give a tour, but it's fun when you have a good group who are interested in what you're saying.

Basically, the point of this post is to say that I finally feel like I know what I'm doing in some aspects of this internship. Just in time for the new intern to come next week! Suddenly I will be in the position of a trainer.

Since this was a word-heavy post, here are some recent pictures.

What I drive around the compound. The Gator.

Zeus

Arctic

Archie

Mwali showing his nice teeth

Me and Cassie

Rachel stole my camera and took all of these pictures except for the one of me on the gator. Derek took that.

Have a nice day!

Snow at CARE

Hello hello!

I woke up this morning to a pitter patter on my windows, so I jumped up and saw it was raining! Not only was it raining, it was semi-hailing because of the cold weather. But that means we would mot likely not be cleaning today because of the ice building up. Rachel got the answer that we wouldn't be cleaning today so we had a bit of a sleep in :) 

We still had to do morning duties, so once we got up we got everything together and did those while taking some pictures.

 Outside my window

 

 Tiger footprints look so nice in the snow. This was JP.

JP saying hello

 Tess not appreciating our interruption

 Allie taking some shelter under her platform while Archie stayed in their house

Icicles on a fence

Cassie! 

Noel and Mwali in their little cave taking shelter from the wind

The weather has been fluctuating from snow, to hail, to just super windy so who knows how long it'll last. We have to start night duties soon, but since it has gotten even colder, I won't be taking pictures because I won't be exposing my bare hands to the wind. :D

I hope you enjoyed these lovely kitties in the snow! 

Feel free to comment your thoughts,  favorite cats, etc. 

-Steph

The Kitties

Helloooo!
I know, it's been an annoying amount of time since I last posted anything especially when I promised pictures of the cats in my last post.

Well. Here it is. The beginning of all the cat pictures. Me and Rachel (my intern trainer) had a few photoshoots with the cats and got some really good shots on the couple really warm days we've had, in between the horrible cold snaps that I apparently can no longer deal with because I am miserable when outside in that type of weather. I've learned that Texas has some Maine-like wind gusts in that your breath can be stolen from you so quickly.

Anyway, let's get started! :D Since it is already after 10 pm, this will just be a few of the 42 cats. The rest will come soon, when I don't have to go to bed.

Tawney (Mountain lion)

 Raven, one of three black leopards

 Kannapalli, our biggest white tiger

 Solano

 Luca, one of the four "babies"...more on them later.

Luca coming down and Jakey walking towards us

 Flash

 Me and the babies

Rascal

Oh hellooooooo

Milo, one of two spotted leopards

Luca

Luca again, because he's so pretty.

 Sampson, one of two male lions

 He was getting a little annoyed with all the pictures

See? ;)

Layla, Sampson's lovely girlfriend

I'll try and upload some more pictures of more cats soon, and of course the lemurs! Can't forget them :D I hope you all enjoyed seeing some of the lovely kitties I get to spend time with on a daily basis. 

I'M IN TEXAS

Well howdy y'all!

Just kidding :D

I have arrived in Bridgeport, TX and have settled in for the most part. Just a warning, this post will be a little photo heavy, but most of them will be. This will be just a little update on what I've been up to. A little teaser before we go back to the beginning: I have been sore for three and a half days.

Okay, back to Tuesday:

This is what I got to fly in, and it was lovely. Torrential downpours all morning and afternoon.

I felt like I was flying in limbo, nothing around me but white. I was prepared for this the entire 4 and a half hours.

Mmmm, yes.

But then the sun came out, and the clouds were AWESOME.

Texas sunset :D


I got in just after sunset, and was pleased to find my checked bags were some of the first to come down the conveyer belt thing. The very first night was basically settling in and unpacking, but I was pleased to find out there were domestic kitties here!

This is Bagheera, one of two kitties here. The other, Rikku, is the lump in the second picture. The rest of the first night was getting to know Rachel, the previous term intern who is training me and the other intern. I could also hear some very loud noises from the big kitties surrounding the intern housing, which was exciting. It wasn't quite roaring, but something else.

The next day I cleaned the whole housing area: kitchen, bathroom, living room, etc. Then I got to meet some lemurs while cleaning their indoor and outdoor enclosures with Rachel. I won't go into too much detail, but just imagine entirely scrubbing down a room...ceiling to floor and that is what we did, then scooped the poop. :P

Noella, the other intern, arrived soon after we ran out of Clorox wipes and had to stop cleaning the indoor enclosure for the day. The rest of the day was getting to know Noella and making a run to Walmart to get groceries and some inventory stuff for C.A.R.E. Then nightly chores, which we couldn't help with because we're baby interns who can't do anything yet.

Morning duties consist of feeding the lemurs, Bindi the Coati, giving out medication, and watering all the big cats. Noella and I follow Rachel around the facility learning where all the hoses are and what water buckets they go to. There are around 40 cats so it's a lot of information to take in. Repetition is our friend.

Nightly duties are very similar to the morning with feeding lemurs and Bindi, but they get different food. The lemurs get lots of fruits and veggies along with their morning-type food and Bindi gets some fruit and other stuff. Then watering all the buckets.

Thursday was cleaning day which means we clean all the pens and this happens every four days. Some volunteers always show up to help with the tremendous amount of work. I'll write about cleaning day in another post to get into detail but it is a WHOLE lot of work. Oh, and of course morning and night duties.

Friday consisted of morning duties, we finished cleaning the lemur enclosures, and were taught lots of new things. We learned how to drive the gator, the tractor, and how to work the bucket of the tractor. Then...we got to watch the butchering of a cow which was the leopards and cougars dinner that night. No details because most people don't want to hear it. But I got covered in blood from carrying cow legs into the gator's mini truck bed thing. Those things are friggin heavy, especially the hind legs. Then nightly duties again without us, but Noella and I prepare the night food so Rachel delivers it and does the watering but we still feel bad we can't help. We can't help because it is super dark out and we don't know the layout of the facility well enough to be traveling it at night.

Saturday rolled around and had tours starting at 11 am. Morning duties and general cleaning around the house to make it nice for people was pretty much all we did until the first tour. We got to listen in on two tours and see how different people run it, and it was really fun!

I apologize for the lack of big cat pictures in this post, but when I took my camera with me for night duties tonight, it got too dark too quickly to get any good photos. I will be taking it with me for morning duties so hopefully when I get the chance to write another post, there will be some. 

After tours, we just had to do night duties and since it was pretty early, we took our time in preparing the lemur food to make sure they got plenty of variety (as always) but we wrote down exact measurements of everything so that it can be as precise as possible to not waste anything. We also ate a little snack before going out to get a little energy.

Here's a little preview for my next post. It will include LOTS of animals! Oh, and as I'm typing this, I can hear Sampson, one of the lions, roaring in the night. Oh and now Tabula (a lioness) is roaring back. :D

Oh and it almost reached 70 degrees today ;) Have a nice night/day!

It's time

Hello everyone :)

TODAY IS THE DAY. I'll be leaving for the airport soon, nice and early. I'll be updating as soon as I can...probably from the plane, if there is wifi. *crosses fingers*

SO EXCITED.

I actually started packing!

I did something productive! YAY. Mainly because I was sick of looking at the growing pile of clothing that was going to topple over in the corner of my room at any moment.

So I was on my merry way, filling my first suitcase with all my work clothes, pajamas, essential clothing items, etc. When this little one decided it was a grand time to interrupt and plop herself right on top of everything. This is Tonks, my baby. I don't think she is too happy about me leaving. She used to do this when I'd pack to go to UMaine after breaks. She'd just lie on top of my duffel bags and stare at me defiantly.

Well, at least I started! I still have to finish but... PROGRESS!

Happy New Years

Happy 2014! I just realized I go to Texas in exactly 2 weeks. 

Oh. My. God.

Goodnight :)