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.