Working in an oven

Mom and G’ma’s visit seems like forever ago. We had a time trying to visit all of Eureka Springs and Turpentine Creek into one week. The first day we spent touring and shopping around Eureka. You should have seen us trying to push G’ma around on the bumpiest most unfinished sidewalks imaginable, in a town built on the side of the hill. Lets just say…we stopped traffic, literally. Over the next few days, I toured them around the refuge and we took loads of pictures. We also attempted a cavern over in the War Eagle area. When I say attempted it is because the brochure lied to us. It said “handicap and wheelchair accessible.” Sure, maybe a high-powered motorized wheelchair, even that I feel would have been a bit of a stretch. First we went downhill for a quarter of a mile, then upon arriving at the cave entrance with G’ma is a wheelchair, we came to the opening of the cavern. This, mind, was NOT paved. We tried our hardest, but in the end we just could not get the wheelchair to make it through the cavern. Then, we had to tackle the quarter mile hill we came down. It was the best work out my mom and I have had in a long time. Haha. I think we gave G’ma back pains, either from laughing of jostling her all over the place. We saw the biggest Jesus statue in the world and a very beautiful glass chapel. Mom successfully brought my favorite kind of cake for my birthday, yes, it made it all the way from San Jose. The very last day of their visit we decided to tackle Fayetteville and explore an actual city in Arkansas. It was a fun day of shopping and exploring.

It has officially crossed into triple digits here in the armpit of the world. It is hot. Hot, hot, hot. Just standing in the open sun for more than a few moments is over whelming; your back starts to feel as if it’s possible to cook. The rubber bands, that we use to secure the signs telling us which cat is out, had melted against the metal in the habitat field. I drank more water today than I feel I have had in the past 23 years of my life. Good thing there are spigots out in the habitat field because I drain my water bottle abut every half and hour. Although the nice cool water that comes out of the spigots never seems quite cool enough. Even the wind, which used to be such an escape, is failing to provide the usual comfort. We all used to live for the rides down the commissary, to have a little wind blowing in our face but now the wind is so warm it actually adds to the heat index! Not to mention the humidity! I have had people faint, vomit and fall down on my tours. I am surprised/ proud that the one California girl is handling the heat better than the mid-east locals.

Loretta got released into her very first habitat last week. She got to celebrate her 21st birthday by spending it on the grass for the first time. She came from a breeding facility along with her sons Kenny and Willie and her mate Conway. You may recognize her son Kenny, he is a white tiger with many physical deformities due to inbreeding. Just google, Kenny the white tiger. White tigers are extremely popular in the pet trade and in the U.S. in general. Breeders can make a lot of money selling white tiger cubs. But since they are so rare (1 in 10,000 chance if two bengals were to mate in the wild) these breeders have to breed two white tigers together. Ordinarily this means breeding the previous litter. Loretta's mate Conway, was also her brother, which is why Kenny looked the way he did. If a white tiger is born in the wild they usually don't live long because they cannot camouflage and they are very prone to cancer. It is not an advantageous mutation. It started back in the 50's when two white tigers were found in the wild and brought to the States, all the white tigers currently in existence are descendants of that original pair. So, inbreeding is essentially inevitable. 

Some sad news. One of our black leopards, Vada, passed away on Thursday. It was quite a blow to us all, very sudden and unexpected. Sarah and I were getting ready to go to Fayetteville but I needed to run up to the refuge to grab my sandals. While we were driving up the road, it was time to feed habitats so we ended up seeing Kellyn, Katie and Melissa up feeding quarentine. Kellyn waved us down and told us that Vada had a seizure, so bad that Emily and Laurie had to go into the habitat with him and drag him inside. They had thought it was heat stroke so when they got him inside they hosed him down and gave him two bags of fluid. Kellyn said that the vet was coming out and it didn’t look good. Vada being one of Sarah and my favorite cats we decided to wait to see what happened. He hadn’t improved in the half hour we waited for the vet, he had lost use of his legs and and his sight. After the vet came and looked at him and we determined the best thing for Vada was to put him down. He was 20 years old and we didn’t want him to spend the last few months of his life not able to stand or enjoy his habitat. I saw him only moments after he was put down. I gave him a hug and a kiss and Sarah and I drove around for an hour just so we could cry in peace.

Vada came from Montana, a police officer bought him thinking it would make him more intimidating to have a black leopard in the back of his cruiser. Well, Vada did not like it and actually attacked the man. The police man’s response was the take pliers to Vada’s canine teeth and snap them off. When Vada got to TCWR was very skinny and refused to eat because he was in such pain. When he got here, two vets, and anesthesiologist and a dentist preformed a 6-hour dental surgery that cost about 13,000 dollars. They paid for all of it. He had his rotten teeth removed, his exposed nerve endings capped and two root canals. For the past 17 years Vada has eaten pain free and got released into his very own habitat. He loved his habitat. It was part of out daily checklist during out meeting. “Did Vada lock up?” He never wanted to come in; he loved his bench, the sunshine and the grass. He got to spend his last day in his habitat.

On a happier note, we rescued 5 new cats on Wednesday. Really beautiful cats, 4 tigers and 1 ti-liger. Stupid people play God and create Ligers and then decide to take it another step and breed it with a tiger. Noah is a beautiful cat but will likely have many medical issues having a Liger for a parent. Noah is the ti-liger, Crystal, Crista, Ty and Little Tony are tigers.

At the Balcony restaurant 

The interns (Allison is missing)

Zeus scratches :)

Tiger row 

Tsavo and his burlap sack

Precious my favorite hoofed animal

mom and I at the lake

Giving Bam Bam some berries

Cart tour for Gma

Mack catching his dinner

Tour

Into the cavern!

Loretta's first step onto grass

She loves it!

Detroit and his new cardboard friend

Smile!

Humidity makes the world more painful

Hi all,

Tiger in his pool/tube

tan lines...

Steven with yet another rescued Black Rat Snake

Zeus

Magic my love

I promise, this is her purr!

Detroit leaping out of his pool

He leapt out to come say hi to me

The summer is here and it is gross! I miss the marine layer in San Luis Obispo and I miss the 70 degree weather you all are having in San Jose right now! When I am feeling particularly parched I look up the weather back home. Let me tell you something, it is a horrible feeling to see 67 degrees pop up on the screen for San Jose when we are enduring 96 degrees with 87% humidity. It is almost like you are trying to breathe in the bathroom while the hot shower is running. You take a shower in the morning and feel the wonderful relief of being clean and cool, then you step out your front door and all you want to do is make a beeline for the shower. Your body is constantly sticky and the beads of sweat find places you didn't even know had sweat glands, like behind your ears! What is that!? I think I am going to buy a handkerchief just like my Padre because wiping sweat off your nose so your glasses don't fall down only works so well when your wrists are sweating too! Gross eh? When you are outside all day working hard in the sun you can almost feel your skin sizzle, but we have found ways to manage. One is the hose. The hose has become a very close friend. Very ten minutes of so someone blasts you in the back when you are not paying attention, or you spray it into the air for everyone to run through like a big sprinkler. Water fights are a favorite, not to mention it gets all the cats amped up because of all the excitement and because they want a turn to. We have scheduled bath times for the animals to help them cool down too. What other job has a sign up sheet in the break room that says " Bear bath rotation". Thats a good time to hose down yourself periodically while you are hosing a tiger. Also, otter pops. Do you remember those? Although here they call them Freeze pops, because apparently us Californians are weird and have named a frozen pop after small furry mammals. The packs of freeze pops are about 2.50$ at Walmart and Sarah and I bought about six of them. When frozen in the freezer at work, between the staff and interns...we go through about a pack a day. For most of you who know just how white I am will be surprised to see me when I get home. You may not recognize me! Haha! I don't think I have EVER been this tan before. My sandal tans are scary because it's hard to believe I was ever that luminescent.
PS To Mom and Grandma who are coming in 5 days!!! Don't sweat it, this weekend is supposed to rain which is supposed to bring cooler weather! So maybe you will be lucky enough to visit and not have to experience this Arkansas heat.

Memorial Weekend

Well, the rain is gone but that only means that the heat is here. Today it was 88 but with the humidity it felt like the low 90's. YUCK! It sure is a different feeling here, the air almost feels thick. As soon as you walk out the door in the morning for work you feel sticky and always have this consistent need to dab the sweat off your face. Since my job is 100% outdoors it gets difficult to deal with very quickly, luckily most of the tasks include a hose at some point so running through the stream is a common activity for all the interns. At the end of everyday I feel like I have worked a very hard days work, up and down hills in the habitats, moving and lifting 500lb barrels, construction, feeding, 1/2 mile tours, climbing up habitats to secure shade cloths and so on. I have developed a very close relationship with my water bottle and otter pops! :) Otter pops if you are not familiar with them are those frozen pops of various flavors.
Last week, we moved Loretta out to a habitat. She will be my first cat release into a habitat so I am very exited. We had to put her under to move her because she is terrified of the transfer trailer. She is a 21 year old tiger and anesthesia is a huge risk for her so we had the vets come out to make sure that the proper things were available incase of complication. Well, she is also terrified of Emily, one of my bosses. Emily has to be there for transfers so just when we thought we gave her enough, Emily would walk by and Loretta would somehow lurch to sit up. She had more anesthesia than our male lion needed earlier that day. Every time the vet gave her another cc, they'd check her reflexes and then have Emily walk by. It got to the point where it was too dangerous to give her anymore so we loaded her onto the transfer "blanket" and rushed her off to her new lockdown.  After setting her up with some sub q fluids we locked the door and gave her some piece. She was alert within the hour. She has not been let out into the habitat yet because they usually give the cats a weeks time to get used to their new place, new sounds, new cleaning routine, new feeding routine etc. I can't wait. The vets also put a tiger named Missy under to remove an ingrown claw. After which we needed to move her into her den because it was supposed to storm. We got her loaded onto the transfer "blanket" and went to move her into the den. Well the only was to get her into the den was to crawl in there with her. Our boss looked at Katie and I (who were helping with Missy) and said "...are you comfortable going in the den with her?" We looked at each other and said yes instantly.
Today was BB King and Mack's birthday. They got birthday presents!! Big cardboard boxes with different things inside, each wrapped with birthday paper. If you think you have ever seen cute, well, you haven't yet. Seeing a 600lb tiger grab a birthday present and run around, shred it and then drag it into the pool to further demolish it is probably one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

The past week

Magic

Dad and I at Rockin' Pig

BBQ

Justin, Allison and Me

Justin, Alex, Sarah, Me and Katie O

Tour

Bam Bam and his pool

The past week has been fantastic and I have a lot to share in this blog! To start, Dad’s visit was a jam packed, fantastic 3 day vacation during which we brought Eureka Springs to its knees. The first night, his flight got into XNA airport at 9:30 and after getting his rental car he started the drive to the refuge. It is about an hour drive and from Fayetteville to the refuge and is a big maze of twisty back country roads. No signs to speak of and no lighting. I got a call at about 10:30 from him asking for clarification on directions, well, not having a car really prevents one from knowing the roads very well so that was an interesting series of conversations. But, it all worked out and he got here around 11-11:30. I caught up with him and we headed up to the Safari lodging. We sat on the couch until 2:30AM just talking and catching up. Needless to say the next morning came very quickly. We got up to be at the doctor’s at 8AM. We went to have breakfast after, at one of the little cafes downtown. After breakfast we stopped at the dollar store for a few items. Then on our way back to the refuge to pick Sarah up, Dad found the farmers market. We got some Amish pies and a whole pasture raised chicken for the BBQ. We then decided to tackle the day without a plan, and just see where we ended up. We parked downtown and stopped in the downtown store to say hi to Katie O who was working the store that day. Sarah, Dad and I worked our way down the streets of downtown and stopped in all the art galleries and various shops. We ended up finding a little hole in the wall café for lunch. It was fantastic! They only have outdoor seating, which meant we were sitting on a little covered patio over the creek. Good people, good food and good view… what more could you ask for? After that we decided to go check out the train station. They were essentially closing up for the day but the engineer and dad got to talking. You could tell that the engineer really enjoyed talking to someone who spoke “train”. Sarah and I were walking around all the trains on display when we looked up and Dad and the engineer were walking towards the middle of the depot. The engineer offered to show Dad how to drive the turntable!! It was really neat; I explained to Sarah that Dad must be in 7^th heaven because trains to him are like tigers to us. She understood, haha. After the train depot, Sarah, Dad and I headed back to the refuge to have a cold beverage and sort through pictures. When 6:30 came around we rounded up the rest of the interns and went into town for dinner at the Rockin’ Pig. And even better, after dinner we got ice cream! YUM.

The next morning we got up early and walked around the habitat loop as the cats were being let out. I toured Dad around explaining how the days schedule works and a little about the type of work we are going to be doing as far as construction, etc. At that point it seemed necessary to get the meat marinating for the BBQ that night. We took the whole chicken and the tri tips and seasoned them, set them in the refrigerator and took off downtown to get some lunch. We had noticed the Balcony restaurant the previous day and decided it would be a good place to have lunch and people watch. We had a great time! The Balcony restaurant is on the second story of the Basin Park hotel and sits over the main street. We had a great view and then these three musicians set up right next to us and played some excellent blue grass/ blues etc. After lunch we headed back to the train depot to take the 2:30 train ride. When we got there the engineer found us and said on the way back to come up to the cab and we could ride up front! It was a beautiful ride, so much green and the creek was nice and full. When the train stopped to turn around, the engineer opened the door to invite us up to the front, all the other guests looked a little quizzical as to why we were getting off the train haha. We climbed into the cab and the engineer motioned to the drivers seat!! Dad got to drive the train! It was awesome. The engineer gave Dad directions on how to drive the train as he drove it back to the depot and even got to toot the horn through the intersection!! We thought the turntable was cool!! When we got back we smashed some quarters on the track and got a lesson on how to talk southern from the conductor.  Finally deciding it was time to leave we headed back to the refuge to start up the grill for the BBQ. Most all the staff and interns came to enjoy the tri tip. Everyone loved it. It’s all they could talk about after Dad left was how good the tri tip was.

The next day was an early start again. I worked my normal Saturday so the Dad could come and get a sense of what I do here at the refuge. I cleaned Tiger row, which is on the compound where the public can self-guide themselves. So, Dad could hang out with me while I cleaned. The compound area is temporary housing, the most recent rescues, so the cages are concrete and need to be well cleaned everyday until they get moved out to the permanent housing in the big grassy habitats. During my lunch break I went back with dad to the room to have lunch and returned to work to do my keeper talk. I talked about niches with the leopards, didn’t have too big a crowd because Bam Bam the grizzly’s pool was being put in which is very very cute. As the summer gets closer, the crowds get bigger and the keeper talk yesterday had about 50 people watching. I was covering the 3 o’clock tour and so I was able to take Dad around the habitat loop again and give him the official tour. After the tour it was time for feeding! Since I did the 3 o’clock that meant that I was feeding compound that day so Dad was able to walk around with us as we fed the tigers in tiger row.  After work we snatched Sarah and Katie O and went out for dinner, our last hurrah before Dad had to leave. We went to dinner at the Balcony restaurant and had a fantastic two and a half hour dinner, visiting, eating great food and watching the sun go down. 3:30AM came very quickly the next morning when Dad had to leave. I was contemplating ways to sabotage his leaving so he had to stay, haha. It was a fantastic three days and I was sad to see it over.

Dad definitely missed the worst of the weather. The day after he left we had a three day heat wave. 90 degrees and 80% humidity.

We had a sad day at the refuge a few days ago. We lost Jerry the tiger, who was a favorite of many. He was very ill and needed to go to the vet due to fact that the vets were at a loss for what was wrong with him. Their plan was to do an exploratory surgery because there was too much gas to see anything in the ultrasound. Our supervisor and two staff members came out to his lockdown while we were cleaning habitats. They put him under anesthesia, they didn’t give him the whole dosage because of how weak he was, so he had his eyes open and didn’t seem to mind. I helped carry him to the transfer trailer, I tucked his feet in and tail next to him. The next thing I heard was that they found a blockage in his small intestine and they were going to remove it and thought he’d be fine. They had opened him up from collar bone to tail to do this exploratory surgery and he was under for 5+ hours. When they finally sewed him up and moved him, he never made it out of anesthesia. He was from particularly bad breeding facility before he came to TCWR and because of which had a very bad heart, which couldn’t handle the anesthesia. They brought him back to the refuge for us to say goodbye, and wrapping your arms around such a majestic animal whose passed is one of the saddest experiences I’ve dealt with thus far.

Construction had begun on the new perimeter fence and I am learning all sorts of things! Yesterday I cut a bunch of drive pipe and tomorrow we use the tractor to drive them into the ground, sounds exciting!

The picture of the leopard below--- her name is Magic and I love her. She and I have gotten very attached to each other over the past month. I can be about 50 ft away behind a series of fencing and talking to another intern or guest and she will hear me and start making her happy noises, letting me know that she sees me and wants me to come over. It can even be her day in, which means she is in a brick building in her lockdown and I can be outside talking to another cat and I can hear her through the walls trying to get my attention. Absolutely the most gratifying feeling.

Easter

This is the bench that I made for Elvis the bobcat! 

Easter was an enjoyable affair even with all the tornado warnings. I colored 5 dozen eggs and brought them to the cats for an Easter treat. All the cats really loved them and I had a grate four hours trying to feed them all out. Today was my day off and finished giving them all out because the weather was so bad on Easter. I really was determined to have an Easter dinner so I convinced a few of my close friends here to all cook something and we will all squeeze around our little table and share it. It was an awesome collection of starches! Haha. We all had not been to the grocery store in around 6 days or so because of the weather so we all cooked whatever we could find. We had pasta with shrimp, sauteed potatoes and green beans, corn, biscuits, green beans, french fries, fruit salad, brussel sprouts, more potatoes, chips and the list goes on. It was very fun :). Hope everyone's Easter was great!