Bare branches blowing in the wind

...and I can see across the lake for another 6 months. Above is the view not from my desk, which sits in front of a bay window overlooking the lake. It's not much of a lake - a pond, really, only 16 acres, but at least there are only a few of us who live here year round. The rest are summer only residents who are only noisy around the fourth of July. I am amazed at how lucky I am - and how much I don't feel as lucky as I should. I always wished for a quiet life in the woods when I was growing up in two big cities - now that I have it, I long for the city sometimes... Grass/greener thing, probably.



The other creatures in my life who are lucky are my two dogs, who have access to the warm, dry basement and a huge, fenced in dog yard. Dog people always say when you buy a house, you think of the dogs first - it is true in my case!




Above and to the left are are my two "boys," Baci and Dulse, Newfoundland littermates. Baci is at the top, but don't let the guilty look fool you. He once took an entire wheel of Brie out of a friend's bag - and we didn't even know it until we saw him trotting across the room with a baguette in his mouth. He has a silly stripe of white up his snout, a bright white chest, and two white "pajama feet" covering his back paws. His tail is all black, except for the end, which looks like he dipped it in a bucket of paint. Baci is an opportunist, but he gets away with it because he brings laughter into the house.

Left is his totally serious brother, Dulse, taking a well-deserved snooze. I rescued Dulse from certain euthanasia because the breeder didn't think he would live many years without major hip surgery. He is 9 years old now, has not had any surgery. He is proof positive that a hip dysplasia diagnosis at 4 months of age does not have to be a death sentence. He is able to run around the yard, go for long walks, and dominate his littermate Baci. Dulse never gets in trouble, but if Baci is yelled at, he is the one who runs off looking over his shoulder in shame. Dulse is a special dog. And I have to admit that I do have a special life in these very special woods.....

Today, I feel very lucky.

Sailor's delight

The other night I was driving home from a late day at work and saw a gorgeous red sunset:

It was a glaring reminder that after today I will be going home in the dark until about March. The good thing about driving at night is that you can see the deer's eyes shining in your headlights before you slam onto the the brakes. The bad news is the way the flakes come down in a snowstorm can hypnotize you..... NOT looking forward to 5 months of white-knuckled driving....

The other day going to work as I saw the sun come up, I noticed that the forests of the northwoods, in the distance, don't look that different than far-away mountains.

Oh, and that night, as I was coming home, I saw Mr Porcupine hadn't made it across the road and it really made me sad...

Today the boys and I had another walk down the road, and I saw this gorgeous almost-winter scene.

It won't be long until we're slip-sliding away down this road....

Everybody's livin' for the city...

Not me this weekend, though. This is the time when I really appreciate the quiet where you can hear the rush through the dry leaves and the calls of the birds that haven't migrated, the pioneers like chickadees and nuthatches, that will be our wild backtyard friend.This is when it gets a little less beautiful up here, but much more peaceful. I am able to see more than a sparkle of Crescent Lake through the deciduous trees at the end of my lawn, I am able to shop in town without it taking an hour to buy a can of tuna, and I am able to take my Newfs for walks down my skeleton-tree in front of lush pines road without fear that an Illinois teenager will come barreling around a curve. I have a perfect (so-far) system. We used to sell this item called "Hands-Free Leash" which is a big adjustable elastic band that goes around your waist and attached to the front is a stainless steel loop, which attaches to a bungee with a clip on the end of it. I made it for my two by further attaching a coupler to it so I had both of them pulling me along.

All the leaves are brown... and the wildlife too....

Fall brings happiness and sorrow to we year-round northwoodsers. More wildlife is on the move, so we get to see species we don't see all the time, for instance I saw a wolf cross the road last week and last night, during a horrible late fall/early winter sleet storm I saw a porcupine creeping across the highway. It was going really slowly, like it was saying "Shit! I should have brought an umbrella - I didn't expect this! This traffic can kiss my spiny ass if thinks I am going to move any faster!" Several people swerved out of its way and I saw in the rearview mirror that it made it. I guess attitude is everything, even in the wild kingdom.

Initially I thought that it might be hurt, so I felt bad, but then I googled the speed of porcupines and they apparently do move really slowly. I guess they don't have to run very fast from predators. Witness the result of a collegue's dog having a run-in with a porc (she was on her way to the ER when this photo was taken and recovered really nicely.)

I just looked it up: a baby porcupine is actually called a "porcupette". Oh how I love language.

The fog comes in on little cat feet...

...and as I glance left on the little road I take to my home, I see a hint of a gray haunch with a bob tail disappearing into the darkening woods. It's fall, nearly winter up here in the woods, and the smell is almost as refreshing as it is in the spring, but the astringent pine scent is softer somehow, and more pleasant than I remember it a year ago.


The dogs are excited about the new smells - everyone is happier except my colleagues who know that this is the start of the busy season that won't let up until March.

I haven't written in nearly 3 months. A lot has happened. A lot hasn't happened. I quit the Wildlife Rehab Center and feel bad about it. Mark and Sharon are okay with it though.

Baci had a bad neck problem that gave me a scare.

I wrote two press releases for St Matthais that made it in the Lakeland Times and upped the attendence of the events I wrote about quite a bit.

I'll sign off now - gotta get used to writing in here again.

It's a dry world after all

Friday I took a vacation day from work. Sick to stomach anyway and depressed. Good to be off of work, but sleeping the afternoon away did not help depression matters.

The weirdest thing happened. I have been glued to the television, as always, and these commercials about "Who does depression really hurt?" come on all the time. ("As if depressed people need something else to worry about", I keep thinking to myself resentfully. )

One of the scenes of the commercial has a Weimaraner at the door with a ball in his mouth, waiting - to imply that the owner is depressed and not playing with his/her canine buddy. Tug at heartstrings for me (forget about the neglected kid or spouse!).

Anyway, the power of the tube must be working a little, because yesterday, in the midst of a horrendous depressive episode(mmmmmmmmmmmmmm-Menopause is soooooooooooooo much fun!), I promised Baci that I would take him swimming today and I would throw the ball for him. Well, all day today he kept glancing at me, and that Weimaraner kept coming into my head, so I put on my green grape suit and a T-shirt and we headed out to the dock. I haven't been out there since May (so GLAD I pay taxes to live on a lake!) and I hadn't noticed how low the water was. When I moved here in the summer of 2002, the water came past the beginning of the dock and in fact there was a giant walleye who had a nest under the left end of the dock. Now the sand down there is hardly even moist and the grass on either side of the dock is hip high. I have been hearing that we have a drought in the Northwoods, but it's hard to believe when we had as much snow as we did and all the rain we have been having lately. It just floored me.

ANYWAY.......

I took Baci out to swim and took my new Chuck-It with us with us and threw it over and over - we must have stayed out there throwing and swimming for about a half hour always heard the secret to keeping a dog interested (as if Baci weren't the most observant and interested dog in my house right now) is to stop training when he is still anticipating fun. I stopped after a half hour and he still wanted to go after another ball. And he's 9 years old! And hasn't exercised in months! Tomorrow I will take his brother out (Dulse, his bro, is currently sulking with his back to me right now,sighing heavily every one in a while. I don't think he has the power of mind control that Baci has, though!

Baci has not looked as content in a long time as he has all evening.

A Tree Falls in Minocqlyn

So there are drawbacks to being a semi-recluse, I discovered this weekend.

We had a huge, cracking thunderstorm Friday before I left for work, so bad that my big "tough" dogs lept on the bed with me ("huh? what's that NOISE? Woof.") The brave one, Baci, actually started "growling back" at the storm as it moved off. But I was surprised and pleased that the electricity stayed on without interruption and nothing seemed to be amiss as I got ready for work, put the dogs out, and took off down the road to work.

It was really hot on Friday and was due to be even hotter on Saturday, and, since I don't go into town after Thursday (because of the t(err)ourists), generally, I was all set up for the weekend with dvds and soda and food and such. I had also been battling the summer cold from hell and was determined to not have one minute of discomfort all Saturday. So I hermetically sealed myself inside the house with the a/c blasting (for the dogs of course!) and watched old "Degrassi Junior High" dvds.

A great day. Then came Sunday, which was just as hot, but in which I had to get the garbage out to the end of the driveway and go into town to get an a/c filter and other stuff. So Sunday morning, I walked out to the driveway and saw, behind my truck and my car, that a HUGE White Pine had come down on the driveway and taken a birch and a couple of aspens with it. It was so massive - as big as a moving van – that at first I didn't know what to think. I moved some miscellaneous branches out of the way so I could get the garbage bin by, then when I came back, I moved other branches so I could get my little car out.

I wasn't sure what had happened. I looked up about four stories high and saw that what was on my driveway was the top of a huge tree that had either been hit by lightning or been blown off by the wind the day before. The exposed pith where it had come off was a scar as big as a large man. I was just astounded that something this big and seemingly sturdy had been cut down in its prime by nature. We think of nature as only taking the weak, as culling the unhealthy from the herd or forest or population, but this was proof positive that this was not the case. I couldn't look at the downed tree anymore because it was actually making me extremely sad.

Even on Monday, when I got back from work, after I had arranged to have the tree cut up and hauled away at the end of the week, I was floored at what a waste of beauty this was. On Sunday the needles were still sprung out like it was drinking up the sun, and pulling up nutrition from its trunk. By Monday evening the needles were already wilting, closing like a person's dying hands, as if it had given up hope. Or accepted its fate. It was still very hard to look at this fallen mastadon of the forest. I took a small branch from it to put in my living room.

I can't wait until my chainsaw-wielding friend comes this weekend, cuts it up into manageable pieces. and hauls it away to use in his outdoor wood burner. It will be comforting to know that it is helping heat humans this coming winter.

Wild nights are calling

Loony bin
For the past week, about 7:30 in the evenings,I hear the loons calling each other. Last week there appeared to be some altercation between these birds with some terrible noises coming from the lake. When I asked the rehab director about it, he said that the males may be fighting for territory and that would mean that a male coming in to take over would kill the other males chicks and it would not be unusual for the two males to fight to the death. I haven't heard the screaming since that night,but the winning loon reminds me every night who's boss.

A day in the life
Didn't get to do much at the NWC this weekend. Fed some baby birds, which is always rewarding and scary (I'm not very good at making sure they get all the mealworms they need.) And I set up an aquatic cage for a blue heron juvenile who just looked plain scared. We set out a lot of buckets with branches in them so he will have plenty of places to hide out.

We also got another bald eagle in with a luxated shoulder, although this one was given some steroids and put in a cage in case he might recover some ability to fly.
Weekend at Barbie's
I had a guest this weekend who gave me a huge surprise for my 50th. Little reminders of what has gone on since we have known each other (nearly a quarter of a century!) like a composition book from the university of Minnesota, a toy teller tray to remind us both of where we met and where we never want to return to and a nice card with a generous contribution to the Humane Society of America (not George's"Human Fund"!) It was a wonderful gesture and made me feel good.

Let them eat baguette
I fought the t(err)ourist battle at the grocery store this weekend because I wanted to make this fantastic Italian bread salad that called for an entire good baguette. I grabbed the baguette out of the bin and it was so fresh that it was still warm from the oven. After a half hour in line, I went home. I got everything and put it away and stupidly left the dogs out while I went to change. I came out not two minutes later and the only thing left of the baguette was the little cellophane window on the package. I told the dogs that it was a good thing I don't believe in beating animals. They looked at my from the corners of their eyes all night. NO DINNER FOR YOU!

The rest of the weekend went rather smoothly.

I am kind of tired today because I am under the weather and from now until the beginning of September we can be called into my fave place, the "w(ho)arehouse" at any time.

Red Letter Day

Last Friday, on the spur of the moment, I was flipping through a dog magazine and saw this fantastic idea for a bowl that would ensure that dogs would eat slower. I saw a few subtle design flaws,including the material used and submitted my idea,called the Slow-down bowl, to a company contest we had all week I submitted it at the very last minute.

Well,today was our annual company picnic, where the grand prize winner was announced and I couldn't believe it, but I won with my simple design idea. The funny thing is that there were far better ideas in my opinion,but I guess I won't complain as I cash my "big check" at the bank tomorrow!

As I am finishing this up,and for the first time in 3 summers, I have a deer grazing on my front lawn as I am watching her! Of course I haven't mowed in weeks so there are probably some delicacies out there for her to munch on. How exciting!

Wild Kingdom

Remember this? Marlin Perkins introduced the topic of the show - like alligators - and his assistant Jim Fowler. After the Mutual of Omaha commercial, Marlin comes back, and they are out in the Everglades at a campsite. He then says, "I'll just sit here in the tent with Larita, the foot masseuse,while Jim goes out to find the man-eating gator!" Then he says something (from the tent) like, "Watch out, Jim, for that flailing tail! One knock from that'll scar you for life!"

Head hanging
There was a whole misunderstanding about last week when I decided to take the weekend off because I was depressed that I turned 50 (like I could do anything about it!). The NWC didn't get my message and were apparently swamped, so I felt bad, but I went in anyway. And of course they love volunteers so much they welcomed me with open arms.

Fawn-Doe-Rosa
There is a game farm near the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota called Fawn-Doe-Rosa. It is a silly name, but it runs through my mind often when I am feeding the little fawns who are getting bigger and shyer (yey-they'll have a chance in the wild!) at the same time as they really really want their bottles of formula. We are getting more and more, although we have plenty more room. Of course the rehabilitator always wishes there would be fewer animals in need.

There otter be a law
The baby otter who was cuddling on my foot a couple of weeks ago is now in an aquatic cage of her own,alternately having a blast swimming and figuring out ways to get out of the enclosure into the "no-man's land" that buffers the cage from outdoors, when the interns or I come to slide more fish into her bowl. There are now thick leather gloves between the two doors in case she escapes, because apparently she would rather bite the hands that feed her than get caught I was over feeding the Merganser ducklings, I saw the assistant rehab director try to distract the otter by making "burr-burr" noises as the intern tried to slip in the fish unnoticed. She did get away with it, but barely.

Micey-micey, who cut up the miceys?
Although the barred owl chick that I tweeze-fed mouse parts to for the last two weeks is out with another barred owl and eating on his own, I still had to halve mice for the two wise ones, and this is my MOST unfavorite job. I'd like to report that I only gagged once, but didn't hurl.

He will never pass this way again
We had to put down another bald eagle today, because he came in with a dislocated shoulder. He was beautiful - even the rehab director said so. Someone who has lived here for a few decades told me a couple of weeks ago that the eagle population has just skyrocketed since she was a youngster, so I suppose with more life comes more death,too. It was still sad.

Gaping at me
I think baby birds have to be THE most helpless creatures (besides human babies). And we have a lot of them and are getting more everyday, from incubated spotted eggs (which we got to look at in a little dark room with a pen light to see how the embryos were progressing) to the robin who was released,but still hangs out at the aviary hoping that someone will take pity on him and hand feed him. Although he is fully capable of foraging on his own, his charm when he flies at your face or lands on your shoulder peering at you through still-baby-like pin feathers, tugs at your heart and you give in. Even the rough and tough experienced rehabbers do it!

Oh and one more thing. I always have been and continue to be amazed at the gentleness of the men who choose to care-take animals, whether wild or domesticated (the animals I mean, not the men). A very charming trait, indeed.

Sweet Hitchhiker

I noticed a big spider on my side window as I was pulling out of my driveway this morning. I thought it would be blown safely off as I wound slowly a mile and a half down my road to the highway, but to my surprise, it was still there as I pulled out onto Hwy 70. As I sped up, I noticed it shot a strand of its silk onto another area of the window as if to anchor itself. I slowed down in town and thought it would scramble away as I stopped for one light after another. It was still there, though, as I merged onto Hwy 51 and then down J to Hwy 47, where I had to travel 25 more miles.

Every few minutes I would glance at it, gritting my teeth for the expectation that it would be gone. But though its legs blew this way and that by the force of the wind, it still clung on to the same spot on the window. I reflected on what the spider must feel like - was it fun? A rush? A shit-what-did-I-get-myself-into moment? And what could I compare the experience to in human terms - being on one of those amusement park rides where the cetrifugal force sticks you to the side of the wall as the floor drops below you feet - or something the astronauts or deep sea divers are forced to go through before they take off on their adventures?

The spider clung on through the slowdown at Lake Tomahawk, when several giant semis passed in oncoming traffic, through my road-rage-ist passing a slow old person who had had his left blinker on for 5 miles, and even as I swerved to avoid a vole skittering across the highway. This spider was determined.

To keep myself from freaking out too much and just pulling to the side of the road and blowing it off into the woods, I made up a story about it needing a change of scenery. Maybe it got bored with life in Minocqua and needed to party with a hipper crowd of spiders in Rhinelander or Madison.

When I was almost at work, I stopped at the light right before I turn off the highway though, and the spider scrambled down the window and onto the side of the door. When I started up again, it blew off onto the road.

I can only hope that it found what it was looking for.

Bear with me

Someone sent me a photo of a tree with a bear at the top looking down at a tiny orange tabby. According to the story, this was the second time that day the cat, "Jack" had treed this bear! I had to spend some time telling people who were saying stuff like "Wow, a MAN EATING bear chased up a tree by a cat…" and other ridiculous things that, actually, the species of black bear that inhabits our part of the country (and New Jersey, where the cat/bear story took place) is known to be pretty docile. A decent, informational site can be found here.

Bear on Deck

I discovered this a couple of years ago when, one night, the dogs went nuts and the next day I saw some bear scat (poop) on the lawn about 6 feet from my deck. It was the first year I had bird feeders up in the summer and was religious about filling them. I didn't think much of the scat, except for I knew not to go out when it was dark. I think it was the third summer I was in the house I live in now.

Two nights later, I was up late, I think it was a weekend night, watching television from a chair right next to the open window in my living room. It had been hot that day, so I had all the windows wide open to let in the cool night air. I was relaxed, watching a movie with the lights off, when the dogs started growling really low and I thought I heard someone come up on the deck, because the boards started to creak a few feet away from where I was sitting. I muted the television and got up slowly. By this time the dogs were starting to go nuts again, so I put them at the back of the house. When I came back out to the living room, I all of a sudden wondered why the motion sensor light didn't go off, but then I heard a CRASH! I turned the outside light on and there, straddling the banister of my deck, was a yearling bear with his arms (I swear they looked like a gorilla's arms, they were that long!) stretched waaaaaaaaaay up on the tree next to the deck, looking back at me, very frightened. I had a round plastic temperature gauge, and it was swinging back and forth next to the bear's arm. He must have seen my face shining through the plate glass window because all of a sudden he rushed up the tree so fast that it shook the house. And he stayed up there.

I called the only place I could think of at midnight, which was the local police station. I told the woman who answered that I had a bear on my deck and I was too scared to go near the windows to close them. The woman kind of laughed and said to scare it away by making a lot of noise, like with a pot and spoon; that usually worked.

By the time I got the pot and spoon out the bear had ventured down the tree again and onto the deck and was eying the full feeder I had hanging right in front of the picture window. I banged with all my might and yelled and he did go away so I could close the windows.

I decided I had enough excitement for the night so I took the dogs, who were still pretty squirrelly, and I went to bed. For about 15 minutes. Then the dogs started barking like crazy again and I went out into the living room, assured that whatever was out on the deck could not waltz through the screens into my living room. I heard a banging and a wrenching and when I put the porch light on, I saw the yearling grab the feeder, rip it down from its hook, pull the top off of it to get to the seed and sit down munching away.

At that time I decided "what the hell"and sat down to watch this fascinating creature who was obviously starving. It looked at me once in a while, but it seemed to know, like I did, that the piece of glass separating us would serve as protection for both of us. It was then that I fully realized that I am indeedn privileged to be living in this creature's habitat and that I never have a right to think that these animals are encroaching on my territory!

I had a couple of minor bear encounters later that summer-it turned out that because of the weather-there was not enough natural food for them, so bears were seen more that year than usual.

Wild at Heart

I'm getting more used to being around wild things, I guess. Still a thrill to be doing something so different and to have the privilege to serve Mother Nature, though and there is always something different going on at the center.

Fawning behavior
Man, baby anythings are cute, but it just squeezes your heart to walk into a pen with 6 warm bottles of deer formula clutched to your chest and have 6 tiny fawns come rushing out of the tall grass to be fed. The littlest was under 12" at the shoulders, but just as eager as the rest of them lifting up its tiny head, grasping the bottle's nipple and happily feeding, its black nose gleaming in the sun.

As a relative newbie, it is sooooo hard for me not to want to coo and bill but it is important to keep them as wild as possible so when they are released they will be (as) naturally (as possible) afraid of humans.

Starling inspector! (from Fawlty Towers)
There are lots of baby birds and more coming in every day - there are starlings, grouse, grackles, I saw a hummer, wrens, and others. I just mixed formula and watched but learned a lot about baby birds today. First, if a bird, baby or otherwise, is not native to the area, the bird will be rehabilitated, but the rehabbers won't necessarily be as upset if the animals doesn't make it. This holds especially true for nuisance species, such as the European Starling, that kill other birds, peck their eggs open, and take over the original bird's nest.

I also listened in to the assistant rehab director instructing an intern on what to tell a caller who found an unhurt baby bird on the ground but could not find the nest. The mother bird was apparently flying around in a panic and the caller did not know what to do. The assistant director said to find a cool whip container and line it with paper towels or Kleenex and securely duct tape it as high as she could on a tree she could see from her window. She was to place the baby bird in the "nest" and walk inside her house immediately and observe if the mother bird came to care for the baby. Sometimes this works and the mother bird will use the fake nest as a real nest. But of course sometimes it doesn't.

Whooooo's sticking those tweezers in my throat?
The barred owl chick is getting bigger and bolder and irritated with people sticking bloody mouse legs down his gullet. Although I did not have to cut up a mouse today, I did have to feed him and he kept hopping to the back of the cage and I had to keep gently grabbing him and putting him in a position where I could easily feed him. Other than the constant hopping away, he was relatively easy to feed. Next week by the time I get there he will probably be eating on his own.

The littlest duckling
Seven tiny ducklings, a mix of hooded Maragansers and Mallards, were a new addition to the pond room this week. Six were happily swimming around diving for minnows, and when I went in to check their food, they hurried out of the water and looked at me suspiciously. The seventh, a Mallard, was by the heat lamp in the corner with the food and, sadly, did not look like he would make it. I'm hoping it was just because he was quite a bit younger than the "pack". Just as I was leaving someone brought in four Mallards about his size, so maybe he'll survive after all.

Ratmunk
I was learning what charts to pull each hour and one chart had "Ratmunk?" on it. It was a minute, hairless mammal of some kind and no one knew what it was, so we are just feeding it until it takes on attributes of what it will be. Maybe by next week?

Wildlife vocabulary word of the week:
Altricial: Born featherless/hairless; eyes closed or blind; unable to self-feed.

Sky

I awoke at 4 a.m., sleepy-eyed, looked up and saw the most fantastic red morning sailor-take-warning sky in the east through the dark pines. Tonight I see a huge silver moon slowly rising above the shadow pines on the other side of the house.

Roach in the drawers

I grew up in New York City where we had to deal with cockroaches all the time. In fact, I remember, as a teenager, that getting a drink of water at night was a complex procedure. It entailed leaning into the kitchen to turn on the light and waiting for the roaches to scatter (like a living black rug being sucked back under the counters) before I stepped in to fill my glass.

But roaches don't just exist in NYC, as I discovered when I began a new job cleaning the kennels at a Big-10 university's veterinary teaching hospital one summer. The kennels were set up like this: the 10 wards (each ward with 5 large "big dog" kennels and 20 smaller dog/cat cages in it) were set up back to back. There was a channel at the back of each cage so it could be easily sprayed out with a hose and disinfectant. Behind the channels between each pair of wards was a dank no man's land area where lived the most gigantic cockroaches that anyone there had ever seen-besides those people, of course, that had lived or traveled to countries where such things exist, like Madagascar. These were legend and it was speculated that they started out as normal-sized roaches, but the food and other unmentionables washed behind the kennels had allowed them to grow to enormous, Mothra-like proportions. (EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! GODZILLA IS APPROACHING!)


Okay, so we knew there were these tremendous cockroaches that roamed the behind-kennel area of the vet hospital. We heard that people – veterinarians even - were known to go the long way around to avoid it if they saw one down the hallway that had escaped its wet, slimy dungeon. It's not like you could step on one without having to do a major cleaning job on your shoes.

But we coexisted with them anyway-learned to turn the hose sprayer on "hard spray" to get them out of the way when we were cleaning behind the kennels. Avoid them, that is, when we could…

Well, one day I was in a rush, having traveled the 25 miles from vet tech school to get my four hours in cleaning the kennels. I went into my boss' office to change from my requisite tech school whites to my green cleaning scrubs. I put them on and went out into the hallway to start my job. All of a sudden I felt an itch on my inner thigh, so being alone in the hallway, I scratched it - and felt a lump. I SCREAMED as I shook my leg and out fell a cockroach as big as my palm, which righted itself and then went scuttling down the hall.

Of course I went back into my boss' office, took my scrubs off and turned them inside out, shook them about a thousand times, and then went to tell my colleagues. 10 years later, at a different job, in a different city, I still hear about "the day that roach was in your pants - ew"

And that's the truth.

Into the Wild

Please Release Me
I saw a bald eagle release today and it was spectacular and totally unexpected. I'm not sure why it had come in the center intially but it was healthy enough to be on its own so the interns drew lots to see who would release it. They do this every spring and summer and everyone has a turn if enough eagles are brought into the center.

The lucky intern handed me her camera and the rest of the interns, Mark, Sharon, and I followed her out to the eagle's flight area at the NWC. There was a definite air of excitement although noone was laughing or giggling. I snapped photos as Mark went into the enclosure with a canvas sack and three interns while the rest stood outside peering through the gate until Mark caught the eagle in the sack and came out. We all then tramped through the woods silently to the back gate of the center (gates that look like a big wooden old west fort's) to the release area.

We were all still in hush mode as Mark handed the intern the sack and she held the eagle's talons with her leather-gloved hands as Mark peeled the canvas back to free the raptor. The intern then lifted the eagle up in the air, let go and he flapped his huge wings and took off, never looking back. Everyone then started talking and it was palatable how everyone's emotions were released, then, just like the eagle. It is inexplicable how lucky I felt being able to see that up close, especially since last week another eagle had to be euthanized.

I didn't stay long enough today to see the door mouse release....

Love Those Meeces to Pieces
Mice this time, not moose, actually mouse, but in pieces.
Okay so I gagged today for the first time. I had to feed a baby Barred Owl (unbelIEVably cute) and his diet consists of chopped up mouse (not just in half!) mixed with ground meat. Very stinky. I thought I could do it with no problem like I cut the rat in half a couple of weeks ago, but I guess chopping up in pieces was what did it. After the third time I turned around to the sink with my hand (and mouse gutted-up knife -ew) to my mouth holding back a giant gag, Sadie the intern, laughing of course with the other interns!) iold me I didn't have to do it, but I made myself finish. And when we went over to the baby Barred Owl's cage and she showed me how to feed him- to tweeze just the right amount of the mixture, open the baby's beak, then poke it down into its gullet a couple of times, she let me do it. I almost lost it again when one of the chunks I picked up was a little pink leg, but the owl ate for me and it was a success.

I also got to feed baby birds and the baby otter oh and some little bitty fawns when I first got there. What a wonderful job that I look forward to each week.

Moose on the Loose

A colleague-friend of mine was just telling me that she saw two moose (s? meece?) this weekend in the woods behind her aunt's horse pasture. I was just riveted.

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.

Make new friends but keep the old

I have had some occasion to think on all types of friendships recently and realize the value of them all.

Silver
Recent friendships have sprung up with a couple of colleague at work. I don't know if it’s because I am finally settling in here after 7 years, or if the recent enlargement of our department has brought us "old-timers "together – whatever it is, I do appreciate both of them in my life. We are very different, and have worked together for years without managing to form a bond, but a few months ago, we started doing things outside of work and boiiiiing- friendships formed. The appeal of a new friendship is the same as the appeal of any new relationship - getting new information about people and connecting. The surprising thing I am noticing is finding out how much we have in common. And that gut-laughs can happen with new friends as well as old.

Gold
There is absolutely nothing like a friend who shares old memories, though, whether the memories are 10, 15, 20 or even 30 years old. Old memories, especially if you can get a good gut-laugh out of them, are essential for living life.

Old friends have seen you in many lights and have gone through trials and tribulations with you (as you have with them) and have seen you at your best - and at your worst - and STILL love you. I am incredibly lucky to be blessed with a few old friends who share a wacky sense of humor, a sense of irony about life, a sense of caring, a love of animals (or not) or all of the above.

One of the great things about life is that solid new friends become old friends, so forming friendships throughout your life means that you will always have someone to share memories with.

Move on-there's nothing to see here....

I always have this problem when I have a three day weekend - rare at my job up here in the woods - the third day can never be planned. I allow myself to layabout watching movies and being with the dogs on the porch or in the water. Today is no different, but by the time I woke up it was already 85 on my porch temperature gauge and my neighbor was mowing the lawn with his tee shirt wrapped around his head, doo-rag style. I just scooted out in my pajamas and grabbed the dog food and then came back into my nice, air conditioned house. That's where I was to spend the entire day - in denial of the hot summer coming. Oh well, at least I didn't have to see any nasty terr--uh--I mean tourists today - that's probably how this holiday isolation started.

Oh, I did watch "Transamerica" and "Shopgirl" this weekend. "Shopgirl" was a beautifully filmed movie, but it somehow disturbed me - maybe because the story of the older man/younger woman (depressed woman I should say) reminded me of my past.
"Transamerica" was simply a good movie. Felicity Huffman was excellent as a transgender about to take that final step when s/he hears from the 17-year-old son he conceived (but never knew about) and has to go across the country to bail him out of jail. S/he then takes him on a road trip across the country back home without revealing to his son who s/he is. It is not a movie with an agenda, it is not campy - it is very funny.

I did take a nice nap wherein I had a dream that I was writing a story starting out, "Imagine if you were...." but then I forgot the rest.

I guess I want to write here regularly because it is good practice, but I don't always have things to write about - especially on days when I don't interact with others - be they man or beast.

All Things Wild and Wonderful

Sometimes it's hard to believe that so much can transpire in so little time. I notice this when I travel abroad, when I start a new job, and recently, each time I volunteer at the NWC.

Teach your children well
Mark Naniot, the husband of someone I consider a good friend, is the rehab director for the NWC. We had newbie interns in today - mostly students who are going to be attending vet school at some time in the future and need this to round out their education before they apply. Therefore Mark was at his teaching finest, and I reaped the benefits because when you are in the presence of a good teacher, and you ask a question, no matter if you're an intern, a volunteer, or your wife's friend cum volunteer, you get a great answer. Today I learned:
-That even though a turkey vulture has a wingspan of 5 feet, it only has a weight of about 4-5 lbs
-That sometimes the most humane way to deal with an injury of the gorgeous symbol of our nation is to put it out of its misery by putting it to sleep
-That calling a baby otter to you is done by making a noise in the middle of your mouth blowing gently outward with your lips closed and not by imitating the beginning of the song "Mr Sandman"
-That when Mark came to the center it was dilapidated and now it is a beautiful, clean facility that saves thousands of wild animals every year.

The Good...
Here comes Peter cottontail
Okay,there is nothing as cute as a warren of baby rabbits. And there is nothing as sad as 31 baby rabbits being brought in by the public because their "mothers abandoned them." Actually,mama rabbits often leave their warrens in search of food, or if they are scared - like by a lawnmower perhaps. And they often come back to take care of their young at night or when it's quiet -unless someone has removed them from the area, at which time they become confused and possibly sad (allow me to anthropomorphize here).Here's a great article on what to do when you find "abandoned" bunnies from the premier lagomorph site, www.rabbit.org. It is the site I use for all things rabbit in my work.
I guess I should be happy that the public is bringing these creatures in rather than trying to domesticate them or getting back at their rivals ala "Fatal Attraction"
Anyway, my shift this week started by watching the new interns feed these 31 baby bunnies by putting an unbelievably tiny feeding tube in their stomachs and squeezing in the liquid nutrition. It is a long, delicate process that takes place every hour all day.

The Bad...
On the wings of eagles
A female bald eagle was brought in swaddled in a shroud of white sheeting in a wooden crate. The interns and I carefully watched as Mark carefully took it out of the crate, ensuring that the sheet stayed over her head. This serves two purposes: to make sure the bird is not frightened, and to protect the rescuer from the strong beak. Mark carefully pulled back the sheet as one intern held the strong talons in yellow leather work gloves. As the sheet was pulled back, the room was filled with the stench of rot. As Mark gently pulled each wing to its full spread, we all leaned forward to see the injury: the feathers under her left wing was damp and a tendon on the top portion was being eaten away by maggots (or as my friend Renee likes to call them, "“rice with legs"). This was a death sentence for the raptor. Because the DNR does not allow rehabilitators to amputate eagles wings below the elbow, Mark had to make the decision to euthanize her. I don'’t know if it was because it was so close to my own dog'’s euthanization, or just because I don'’t particularly like seeing beautiful creatures take their last breath, but I teared up and had to go into the other room for a bit. I forced myself to go back to see the act though- I would have to get used to scenes like this if I was going to survive this work. Unexpectedly, I got so interested in the explanation of what probably happened (an inter-eagle fight?), how we could tell how old the injury was by the age of the maggots (just like C.S.I.!),and feeling the talons and beak of these magnificent creatures for the first time -that I forgot to be upset.

And the Snuggly...
There otter be a law
When I heard there was an otter in the house, I knew I had to find a way to at least observe it, since otters are my absolute favorite wild animals and have been since I was a child. I got to help exercise her, since, although she was healthy, she was not old enough to swim yet. Swimming is the major activity of river otters.

Exercise consisted of letting this foot-long, sleek, button-nosed, stuffed animal lookalike follow you - until she got interested in someone else and followed them. For some reason, she loved curling around my feet and rooting her wet nose under the leg of my sweat pants, making baby purring noises in her throat. Of course I was in love immediately. I learned that she was found as a nearly newborn, that otters cannot swim until they are 12 weeks old (she is 8 weeks old this week), and that she will be released in August, when she will be old enough and strong enough to survive on her own over the winter and find a mate next spring.

After helping with some housekeeping duties, I found I was exhausted at the end of my shift. It was a good exhausted though and I still feel the pleasure of doing for others.

When I got home, the dogs were suspicious. They always know when have been around other animals and when I come back they press their noses on my pants and shoes for a number of minutes,then look at me and snort. It's pretty funny.