Thursday, June 05, 2008

A lesson in care giving.

Last night I left my messy messy home and my husband and 3 kids to go and take care of sick animals. My job as you know, is to clean and feed them. Well, I really got an interesting perspective on care giving.
The fact that mess will happen is predictable,
the amount of mess is not.
I encountered one of my first worm balls yesterday. Kind of freaky. Mine don't seem to do this. They were in a large mass and I had to break it apart in order to count them. EEEWW. Cleaning the flight room (Ward E) was a veritable poop fest. At one point, I thought I had some on my back. I didn't. When we leave for the night, we turn the lights off. So, I peeked in to see how my friends were doing and the floor was just covered in poop and bird food. nice.
Then I moved to Ward C. This is where the turtles usually are. Instead, was a HUGE trumpeter swan and 3 mallards. The swan came up past my hip bone and was hissing and hissing at me. Luckily he could not fly. I needed to empty 2 pools, spray down the floor, feed them and fill the pools. Basically it was me and the swan (with the 3 little mallards following it) doing ring around the 2 pools. I would walk and spray, and he would grumpily walk ahead (with his little duck train). Round and round we went. When I went to put the lights out for them, the floor was covered. ick! I opened the door to check on them, and the swan was just behind it. It flapped and rustled really loud, and of course, I screamed!! Darn it!
I moved to Ward D. This is the ward with the Loon. I worked with the usuals and some new ones too.

grey cat bird


ring billed gull

female hooded Merganser

Before the night was over, I needed to peek in on the baby coyote we had in isolation. He was absolutely adorable. I didn't hear him call, but I was told that sometimes he does.

It is the last day of school today. Time does fly. I am now faced with my own house mess to clean.

K~

7 comments:

bobbione8y said...

let's see.

how many screams is that?!

:) love the wednesday evening recap.

K~ said...

I know, that makes 3 good ones for sure. I almost got out of there too! darn! K~

Unknown said...

clean houses are overrated...

Karen said...

Oh, my. Worm ball?

bobbione8y said...

i know Karen, i skimmed over that thought in my head, so that i didn't get sick to my stomach ;)

K~ said...

Yes, it was quite gross. There was about 30 of them tightly clumped together. They were buggers to get apart too. It kind of made me sick too. K~

Karen said...

Ew. Just trying to catch up before my computer gets packed. It sounds like your summer is off to a great start and I'm proud of you for doing something (trip to the park) that is difficult for you. I need to be braver, too.