It's official....

... My pager has died. So, I don't get to look like a pimp for awhile b/c I won't be sporting both my cell phone and a pager. The big unfortunate part is that this means I have to direct my on-call possibilities to my personal cell phone, and that is just kind of a bummer. It also makes me wonder how long it has been broken without my knowledge. The only reason I know is b/c of numerous calls last night and a few of them from people who know how the pager system works. I feel really bad for all the critters that have gone without help.

As for the rest of my day, filled with butchering a deer, picking up a goose from the ferry, and feeding everybody in the rain once again. Which isn't too fun when I am not feeling all that well. I had a swollen, sore throat come out of no where last night.

back to the rain

Well, today was just a taste of what winter is like for us. I really wish I had a picture of what I was looking at at work. It was raining, and I mean it was coming down quite well. Luckily I got most of the A.M. feed before the downpour started, but I wasn't completely unscathed. From what I hear it didn't rain to much in town, so it sounds like it moved West to East straight across the island. It was one of those rains that would pour and then let up to a drizzle, but no matter what it was a very cold rain. The air temperature didn't feel bad, but once I was soaked I just wanted to curl up for the day. Ha that didn't get to happen.

It was also seemed today, that small things wanted to go wrong. I got to clean out the septic tank filter... eww all by itself and it was mice cleaning day for my breeding mice colony and this all took place before 10am. I also had a monthly report to write, which involves adding stats into the database, and seal release records to complete from Saturdays release, which also requires adding information into 2 excel files. Which, with a rainy day one would think doing computer work would feel better than being outside. To some extent it is, but if it is work on the office computer than it is cold up in the upstairs, plus the rain pounds on the metal roof. I would much rather be downstairs in our "kitchen" working on my laptop to get work done; work which I didn't get to work on today b/c of the other computer work. Hopefully tomorrow I can continue to work on feeding protocols for the main animals that we bring into the center.

After work I of course came home and took a hot, hot shower. Nothing feels better this time of year that to wash the chills away and also climb into a pair of fleece pants, a tee shirt with a fleece sweatshirt and curl up on the couch under a fleece blanket. Aww the only down side is wet hair that cools off fast. But I can suffer with that.

PS this dark really early sucks. It makes me want to bolt from work really early so I can enjoy some daylight time. But also I felt ready for bed a few hours ago. :(

Happy All Saints Day.

Well, I am spending the day recouping after last nights fun (well not entirely- I had to put in a few hours at work b/c we released 2 seals this afternoon).

Last night was fabulous, but I didn't expect anything different. Halloween is my second favorite holiday, losing out to New Years Eve. Needless to say, I was like a child on Christmas morning. I paced my apartment yesterday just waiting until I deemed it was time to put on the costume. Luckily, my friend called and asked me to come hang out at their house early b/c he had to rifle through Halloween supplies to find some makeup and items to put together a last minute costume. So I sprang into action, kicked my cat Onyx off my costume. And headed up the road to their house.

Onyx thinking my outfit was her outfit

It was fun to see the kids in their costumes, but for me is it the excitement of getting to be someone else for the day. I means I generally get into a little more mischief than normal ;O. But all in all, I keep my wits about me and my conscious still nags at me.

Here are some photos of last nights excitement.

Lyle was afraid to show a little leg...

Jessi on the other hand was quite comfortable with it

your bartender for the evening will also be your bounty hunter

KT and I, me being Penelope Pitstop

Heather gets festive with a flying monkey shirt, for her this is Halloween dress up

Cess rocking with Lords of Tiamat

Dick sports a nose like no other

Jessi caught off guard.

Eli, Will, and the back of Ann's head

One fine ass couple

Maddon and Megan

Jason, seriously... all I can think of is the family guy episode where they want Gumble to Gumble back on the air and they put pepperonis on Chris as some sort of Make a Wish Scheme

Tony, biker bob, and Sheila

Ann & Kati... sigh I miss the girls

Today, we said goodbye to 2 more seals. All we have left is 2 more to go (it may be awhile since one of them is pretty small). The tagging process went very smoothly. And the release did as well. We had been discussing what we thought Shrike and Eskimo would do once we went to release them. I pegged it! Shrike peaked out of her carrier, saw the water and humptity humped right into it. Snorting and flipper slapping the whole time. Eskimo on the other hand too a few minutes to come out, and then he didn't really want to venture into the open water too much.

Shrike is already out in the water, you can vaguely see a head, while Eskimo peeks out

Shrike plays in the kelp bed.

Happy Halloween!!!!!

more animals


more animals


more animals


Funny Videos

Tough topics

I know I have stated before that we are slowing down at work, which giving interesting animal stories kind of tough. We start running into the hard-cases and a lot of the sad cases. I would love to give you happy news about our 2 small owls that I am in absolutely in love with but alas I can't. We moved the Pygmy owl outside b/c he seemed to be getting bouncier and had torn part of a talon off. In the aviary (unfortunately in my mind too close to the eagle flight construction, but not much of a choice, that is our aviary alley) he was moving quite a bit around the aviary, running into the screen pretty hard. I decided it would be time for him to go the next morning. Needless to say, we found him dead the next morning. Not quite sure why, he had lost a tiny bit of weight (as we was eating as consistently as we would have like to see), and nothing else was evident to the death. As for the saw-whet owl, not much improvement with eye sight and demeanor in the past 30 days, so we may have a tough decision to make very soon.

Here are some pictures of the cute critters:

Since it is getting soo slow. I have been working protocols for feeding and the growing of our critters. Man alive is it a big pain in the butt! I get to spend a lot of time looking up natural histories, and going back over old charts to look at weights we were changing diet. It is kind of nice because it getting me in gear for taking the state rehabbers test I need to take. Which is a lot about weaning, natural history, when eyes open, when fur grows, and when teeth appear on different species. But, really, really, seriously... it is tedious work.

A good things, our little Fox Squirrel went back to Orcas Isl for release. here is a picture of her when she came in, very, very cold and unable to thermoregulate.

And here just a few days before release.

Halloween is close at hand, and that makes me quite excited... Oh the joy it will bring :D

My names Penny, and I'm an addict....

My newest addiction... these websites:

Steep and cheap great outdoor gear clearanced out of backcountry.com-love this site too

Chain love loads of biking gear

Tramdock snowboarding gear

Whiskeymilitia clothing, goggles, snowboard, skater.. associated with Dogfunk.com

Thank goodness I have been able to curb my need to buy, I have only picked up 2 items off of these sites, but they are fabulous. I suggest you check them out and visit on a regular basis, b/c what they do is put up one item (that is on extreme clearance), once it sells through that lot, they put up a new item, sometimes, just sometimes, your lucky enough if they put the more of the lot up again. So I bounce back and forth on these sites all day long to see what new items they have. What I have gotten is some North Face cargo shorts for work, and just last night I bought what was a 150 dollar watch that was 73% off!!! I have seen numerous sunglasses, mainly Smiths that I have thought about, but just can't put extra money towards it. If you are really close to me, don't be surprised if I find some kind of Christmas present for you here (haha) don't call me cheap, just call me thrifty!

Whistle while you work

Well today was a regular slow fall day at the center. Did some cleaning, some seal weighing, and pulled blood on 2 seals for diagnostic testing to make sure they are a-okay for release. Throughout the day we discussed animals that can be released (merlin & sharp-shinned hawk) and who should be upgraded. The biggest question of the day, where do we move the Pygmy owl to next?? As he is such a small owl, but we need to make sure that he can fly well before kicking him out of the center.

Other things that continued was the eagle flight cage build. Today we had 3 large concrete hauling truck sneak between our building and the wet pen fence, and I might add they just barely squeak through! And a gigantic concrete pumper truck. In other words, the foundation is poured and the poles are set in place. Of course, all those pics are on the work camera, b/c we are documenting the build on a day to day basis.

So other than that. I will give you some photos to fill your head with smiles.

sharp-shinned hawk

merlin

Damn them owl pages

Okay, so I realized this morning that the owlpages.com didn't work for showing you the picture of the short-eared owl or the pygmy owl. So I actually have the work camera attatched to my computer right now to upload the pics from here. I hope you enjoy them.

A note on the short-eared owl. We did radiographes this morning and found that his left shoulder was completely shattered! Prognosis, non-repairable. So, the owl is no longer with us in life sense, but is in Shona's education freezer so we can use his feets and wings as teaching devices.

seriously doesn't it look like a Tim Burton face??

Who Cooks For You...

Okay so maybe we don't have a barred owl in at Wolf Hollow, but I can tell you this. It sure is owl season at the center. And right now it seems like we release an animal and we get another one in place of it! The numbers are just staying steady. But back to the owl subject, we just sent a barn owl(all grown up) back over to release yesterday 10/20/08. That doesn't count for what we have in. All of them little owls, since the first of October we have had a Saw-whet owl in (he had head trauma-- and is still acting a little goofy). Today, we got in a pygmy owl, who is giving us the stank eye(head trauma)... this guy is ubber cute and we haven't had one in in a very, very long time. We also got a short-eared owl, he looks like a cross between Marilyn Manson and a Tim Burton creation(none of the online pics can do justice to how pale white the face ring is)!!! I am a little hesitant to scream the praises of having this little guy in, as once again it is a very rare owl for us to see, and when we do, they are in pretty bad shape. You can guess it, this one is in pretty bad shape, we are holding for overnight and tomorrow morning we will take radiographes of the left wing. Keep your fingers crossed that it isn't as bad as we think and we can fix him right up.

Not much else to add at this time, hopefully I can add some photos we took of the beautiful owls instead of ones I had to borrow off the net. Things are quieting down on the island all together. I like this time of year. Not too many tourist, so I can go to my favorite places again without the ever present annoyance.

Eluding

So I don't have much to say today. Work has been slowing down. Today our six month seasonal left (yesterday was actually her last day), and tomorrow our last intern of the year leaves! So, it is back to just me at the center as a rehabber. Today we sent a barn owl off to mainland for release, and we took 2 gulls to false bay for release as well. Initially it looked like "Henry" (the gull who grew up with us over the summer) wasn't going to leave us. I had Kate throw him in the air to see if he would fly away, but he just fluttered to the ground. I thought okay just one more try and if he doesn't fly he will come back to us, so she threw him up in the air again. And with a small breeze he got air; he looked a little unsure of this extra burst of air, but soon shifted his feet back and tilted forward and took off in a beautiful flight around the bay. Later landing with a huge flock of other gulls! Goodbye Henry!!

Okay, that is actually more than I thought I had to say and was going to lead you onto other blog sites, which I will still do.

If you are into reading, sci-fi, either ya or urban fantasy check out richelle mead. She is a good friend of mine and a good author. She just placed 4th on YALSA Teens' top ten list!

If you are into Kayaking and Nature Jason's blog.

And last but not least, the volunteer Wolf Hollow Blog Hollow Happenings.

Enjoy your day!