Monica's Story
Monica's aunt has several horses on several acres in north central Wisconsin. She was just coming back from a long ride and was tying up her horse in the barn to groom her, when all of a sudden she heard the thunder of hoofbeats out in the pasture. Her horse started to get nervous and buck and shy and was trying to get her horse untied so she could do what came natural to horses that hear their herd's in a panic - to join them. As she was untying her horse she called out to her aunt "Hey, what's going on out there?" and her aunt called back, "I think I see a bear out at the edge of the pasture!" Monica said to herself, "Cool!" and let her horse go. She then went to where her aunt was looking and climbed onto the fence to see what her aunt had seen. To her surprise, the "bear" lifted its head and the two saw it was not a bear, but a moose! In fact there were two moose and the smaller moose- Monica thought a yearling- was bigger than her biggest horse! She was just floored, as I was, that there were moose so far south in Wisconsin (south of Antigo) that had not escaped from a game farm. She, being the brave soul that she is, took her car and her camera and tried to take closeup pictures. Unfortunately once she got there, the moose backed off and she was only able to get minute shots of them.
That story reminded me of two of my own:
Bigpeck
I have many different birds flying through my wild yard all year long. Some of them are unusual. I have rose-breasted grosbeaks, bright yellow finches, and, last year I even saw an indigo bunting. But the most fascinating bird I see on my property is the piliated woodpecker. It is much bigger than a regular woodpecker - about 20" tall - and I have seen it flying, in the trees, and last year, sitting by a flower pot on my deck. I quickly took a digital picture for my city friends who were disbelieving about it. Unfortunately, the second I took the photo it flew away, so I was only able to get one. And of course it was through the window and next to two plants so all that could be seen was the bright red head, which honestly could have been anything. When I sent it around to my nay-saying friends, they made fun of it and called it "Bigpeck" (like the elusive Bigfoot). Good thing this year a friend was over and we BOTH saw Bigpeck fly through the yard. Of course I didn't have a camera. But I will.........
<<= The original Bigpeck
My friend's story also reminded me of a piece I wrote last year. It's not really moose-related - but it has a moose in it!
Oh, and..... not for the faint of heart.
The D-Lab
You never forget the smell of death. The molecules stick to your nose hairs and you find yourself, in the most implausible moments, reliving the stench.
When I started my previous career (my third) as a veterinary technician at the age of 40, I was fortunate enough to work the evening shift of the University Veterinary Teaching Hospital. This was a huge place with 10 wards, an ICU, and room for hundreds of companion animals who needed the medical care we could give. We had a skeleton (no pun intended) staff of veterinarians and technicians to provide emergency care for incoming patients, care for the hospitalized animals, and, because people tend to make these difficult decisions after the sun sets, performing and overseeing euthanasias.
Veterinarians and veterinary technicians generally have a wicked, black sense of humor. Like any stressful job, humor is how the people involved get through it, how can you not use humor as a release. when all day all you see are sick creatures that can't tell you what's wrong?
Unfortunately, practical jokes are a huge part of working with vets and techs. Unfortunately, I should say, for the unsuspecting "newbie" who, the coworkers believe, has to prove him or herself. But, what goes around, comes around and pretty soon it was my turn to be the jokester-always a comfortable place for me.
Let me tell you about my first experience with the Diagnostic Laboratory, or D-Lab. This is where biopsies are sent to determine if a mass is malignant or not, where blood tests are done, and where necropsies are performed and bodies of euthanized animals are stored until they can be cremated or otherwise removed.
A necropsy is the same as an autopsy, only it's done on animals, not on humans. Technically an autopsy IS a necropsy (literally "seeing death").
One newbie job was to take euthanized animals or animals who the vets couldn't save down to the D-Lab, usually near the end of the shift, around midnight. To do this, the bodies need to be transported, and what we had to do the transporting was a big Radio Flyer wagon. So, you're dragging this wagon behind you, steering through dark hallways to a small elevator, where you have to maneuver this wagon to take downstairs to the D-Lab. The first time I went, I was taken down by the tech who was training me, Dana. We maneuvered through the hallways, going right, going left, going through doors, and then onto an elevator. She took me down on the elevator through some more darkened rooms and locked doors, and into this truck dock with a huge, two-story stainless steel double door at the end. Dana took me down to the doors, unlatched them, and told me to put the bodies inside. Then she turned on her heel and said, "Okay, let's see if you can find your way back."
I gave her a slit-eyed look and rolled my eyes. I was older than her, I had lived - I was no chicken.
I opened the door and smelled the odor I'll never forget, and saw in front of me animal bodies inside plastic body bags and out, a horse's head on a shelf, and the legs of at least 10 different species sticking hoof/paw side out of a barrel. I looked up and saw a contraption that looked like upside down toy train tracks-until I realized that the chains hanging from them were used to pull large animals such as horses or cows out of trucks and into the freezer.
(I later found out, quite by accident, that some animals were too big even for the two-story freezer. I remember once in the middle of winter, looking in one of the labs next to the freezer and seeing a moose frozen stiff on the floor!)
I pulled the bodies off the wagon, placed them as gently as I could on the floor of the big freezer, stepped out, and shut and latched the door behind me. I attempted to find my way back up to the front desk of the hospital. What took Dana and I about 10 minutes took me a full hour to pull the empty Radio Flyer back up the elevator and through the maze of dark hallways. And I never did get over the eerie feeling I had my first time in the D-Lab. I went on, of course, to play practical jokes on newbie and long-term employee alike.
I have to say that this blog is renewing my love of writing and sharing. Wow.
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