Way Back/One Year Ago Today…

…I was working at the Wildlife Center when we got the call that changed our lives here on The Hill.
One year ago today I came home with this pitiful little bundle of skin and bones…

The vet told me later on that she didn’t think our little Paddy would make it through the night. But she did.
She did, and we battled through a number of health issues with her for quite awhile. She had fungal infections of the skin…

But antibiotics and some good clean water in the tub eventually cleared that up.

She also suffered with infections in the joints of her legs which caused them to swell so she could barely walk. And digestive problems…. oh let me tell you that a beaver with chronic diarrhea isn’t a pleasant thing!

But, sleeping snuggled up with her dad always made her feel better though…

She has truly been like a child to me for this past year. I’ve watched her grow from an adorable little furball

into a beautiful young adult

And soon, much toooooo soon, Paddy will be headed to her new home in Michigan. It is a HUGE blessing and a total GOD-THING that she has a wonderful place to go where she will be safe from hunters and trappers and predators for the rest of her life and I will get to visit her anytime I want to! AND she’ll have a boyfriend!
I will post more about that later on.
My heart, while joyful, is also very heavy with the thought of bidding her good-bye.

Cuteness X Six

My days are revolving around the babies these days. I’d forgotten how tiresome it is to get formula ready and do the breakfast feeding and cleaning before I’ve even had my own coffee!
I’m usually pretty grumpy until I pick up that first one and then the cuteness makes everything all good again.
I take them one by one and feed them, help them go potty and then put them into a tupperware container until each one is finished.
“Little -Bit”, the youngest one, usually gets fed first. He is so tiny and his fingernails are amazing…

While they’re all in the tupperware, I clean the ‘nest box’ (a small pet carrier).
After getting their bellies filled they quickly snuggle in and go back to sleep until the next feeding time. Here they are in the tupperware waiting to be returned ‘home’ to sleep.

All of them except Little-Bit have opened their eyes now. It’s kind of cool to see them open for the first time ever, clearly unfocused, foggy and blinky. Then, the next time you pick them up you can tell they are really seeing things! Once that happens they start to become much more active and curious.

Today we are taking Paddy on a field trip to swim in a real pond at Chesley! It should be fun, definitly interesting! Pics will follow!

I’m a Mom Again

To SEXTUPLETS!!!

Actually, these baby squirrels are not all from the same litter. Four of them are siblings and there is one a bit older and one a bit younger.
None of them have opened their eyes yet and they are all being bottle fed.
Vicky from the wildlife center has been caring for them but she is going on a much needed and well deserved vacation so I volunteered to take over the care of these lil sweetlings. I’ve only had them a few hours and love them all already!

Heart-Aches and Updates

It hasn’t been great around The Hill lately. First our friend and neighbor passed away.
Then I found out that Rudy the Red-Tail Hawk had to be euthanized. He had been struggling lately, losing the strength in his legs again so he fell down alot and broke alot of his feathers. He was also losing weight. We just were never sure what was wrong with him. The vet suspected nerve damage but she couldn’t figure out why he would seem to start getting better and then relapse. I forgot to ask her if she was going to do a necropsy. It would be nice to find out what his problem was.
Anyway, I take comfort in the fact that for the past year and a half he was kept safe and very well fed.
Rest in peace now sweet Rudy, go fly strongly over that rainbow bridge and land on strong sure legs on the other side.

And next… yesterday I came home from work to find one of The Twins laying dead in the backyard… my first thought was that it was a cat attack, but no, she had been shot with a pellet gun.
It makes me so mad! I brought them here thinking they would be safe! What makes it even worse is that a previously good relationship with a neighbor is going to be very strained unless an apology is forthcoming. It wasn’t hard to piece together what happened and I’m hoping said neighbor will fess up.
So, may you too rest in peace my little friend…

Tux has some type of eye infection going on and the ointment the vet gave me isn’t doing a thing. He looks pitiful.

*SIGH*

Enough of heart-aches, let’s have some updates…

The persevering barn swallows are diligently keeping their eggs warm and guarding the nest.

Paddy is doing great and we’ve taken to having a stroll around The Hill each evening. She stays right on my left heel like a well trained dog. She still loves Mr.C. too…

We had a new visitor at the pond the other day…

I’m sure that the fish and frogs were happy when he left and hope that he doesn’t come back!

Mr. C left this morning to go fishing with that same group of guys he went with last time. This time they are going out for tuna and mahi… hope to get the freezer stocked back up!

So that’s life on The Hill this past week or so…

Howard and The Twins

There were 3 Rock Doves (Pigeons) or as Uncle Grump would call them “Flying Rats” brought into the Wildlife center this spring… one was a very sick adult and the other two were babies. I volunteered to release them here on The Hill and they are quite happy here. Howard, one of the babies, likes to follow me around the yard as I’m working and is fond of landing on my head! They all have personality plus, especially Howard… the twins are a bit more stand-off-ish but follow Howard around dutifully watching over him… the oldest one seems to have adopted a motherly role and will scold Howard if he does something she feels is dangerous or foolhardy… like landing on my head or getting too close to Tux.
That’s Howard on the left….

He will sit on my lap for seeds…

And clearly, Howard recognizes fine art when he sees it!

I’m going to enjoy their company.

This and That

We had a heckofa thunderstorm last night and it’s still wet and misty this morning. I’ll go shopping for plants for Chesley in a little while, but I’ll take a few minutes to update y’all on what’s been going on.

Neighbor Mike welcomed a new horse to the pasture the other day. She isn’t really his horse, he is keeping her in exchange for riding privileges. Her name is Dixie, which is also Mike’s black lab’s name, so we’ve taken to calling her Dixie Too. She’s a pretty thoroughbred mare about 20 years old…

Miracle and Delilah seem to be accepting her fairly well.

Paddy gave the unripe plums fallen from the Crazy Dog people’s tree a try and declared them worthy…

The babies are filling up the wildlife center…
ever seen a baby buzzard???…

There are a couple of baby barred owls…

The usual raccoons…

And plenty of other little bundles of cuteness.
Life is busy busy busy, the weeds have the upper hand right now and I’ve got to get out there and regain control!

How could you not love these faces?

A certain person, who shall remain unnamed, said that she didn’t understand why I would drive many miles to pick up baby squirrels or possums to rescue them. This person is a true animal lover so I’m pretty sure that if it came down to it she would drive the miles too… especially if she saw these precious faces!

Yep, I’m pretty sure she would drive the miles.

I guess I was just destined to be a mom…

Now don’t go freaking out… not THAT kind of mom!

It looks like God wants me to be a beaver mom in the worst way, so my fate and destiny are sealed.

When I went in to the BRWC last Tuesday, Peg was filling me in on all of the latest news and about our new ‘patients’. Then she told me that they had gotten a call about a baby beaver that a nice man said he had found in a ditch a couple of weeks ago after we had some heavy rains and storms. Well, we were just SURE that it was a baby groundhog because beavers are only supposed to give birth in the early springtime, NOT in the fall!  After several phone calls an arrangement was finally figured out that Angela, another volunteer that lived closer to the guy, would go and pick up the baby and that I would meet her part way and bring it back to the center. Well, lo and behold it was definitely a baby beaver… a very young and very skinny baby beaver. He/she (don’t know yet) had terrible diarrhea and was not feeling well at all. Obviously, this baby’s mom had not read the textbooks about when she was supposed to be having her babies! We think he/she was born sometime in September.

Anyway, it turns out that since I was the one that took care of Jerri Mathers, that I have the most experience caring for baby beavers at the BRWC… so the little one came home with me and is now ensconced in a ‘den’ in my master bathroom. And since we now know that baby beavers will become very attached to their human moms, it looks like it’s going to be kind of a long term thing cuz we’re not sending this one to Virginia Beach!!

I’ve named he/she  Paddy after another orphaned baby beaver that I read about in a book my Sissy (aka Capri P) found for me at a used book store. That Paddy’s story had a very happy ending so I’m hoping that this Paddy’s story will go the same way.

So, meet Paddy…

 Paddy still doesn’t feel very good, but I noticed an improvement when I took him/her outside to enjoy the sunshine and green grass this afternoon.

Broken Ends and Happy Endings

Several months ago, while working a the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center a call came in about a turtle that had been hit by a car. Some little kids had found it and insisted that they find it some help.

It turned out that it was hit not too far from my house so I left the center and went to pick it up. When I found the address and pulled over, I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of little boys that I would guess were anywhere between the ages of 4 and 7. They all wanted to be the first one to show me where the turtle was. I was already not very hopeful because of the large puddle of blood in the road, but the kids led me to a bunch of bushes that the turtle had managed to crawl under.  It was bad, the shell was badly broken on the read end of the poor painted turtle.  Some  internal ’stuff’ was showing and I didn’t think the poor thing had a chance. Surprisingly, when I picked it up though it kicked and fought and clearly wanted to be put down!

I thanked the boys for careing about the turtle and for calling the center and told them that our veternarian would do her very best to save him. One boy proudly stepped forward and declared  “ anything I can do to help”… that made me smile.

I then proceeded all the way back to the veternarian’s house which is right near the wildlife center to deliver the turtle; which I was sure would have to be euthanized straight away. When she saw him though she said that it wasn’t completely hopeless although she did have some concerns about some of the ’stuff’ that was showing through the broken shell.

The next week I asked Peg if she had heard anything about it and she told me that the turtle was patched up and doing pretty well although he did lose a bit of shell. After that I kind of forgot about the whole matter until a couple of weeks ago when  Peg asked me if I would mind dropping the turtle off back near where I had picked him up! WOW! So that very day I took the turtle  and released him into his home pond. He was quite happy to be home I think.

 Broken Ends

and… 

HAPPY ENDINGS

A special THANK YOU to all of those little boys, to Veternarian; Belinda Burwell and to the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center… It is SO worth it!

We love Jibbitz

No… not those cute little charms made to go in the holes of Crocs shoes.

This is the Jibbitz we love…

I brought him home from the BRWC last Tuesday.

 A couple had found him as a baby and hand raised him and they had handled him quite a lot. He is VERY human friendly and likes to jump and crawl all over you! I’m not exactly sure why the couple turned him over to the center, but last week I asked Peg… what are we going to do with that overly-friendly squirrel? She responded “release him far away from here!” So, of course I volunteered Sassy Cat Hill  as a release site.

I let him go and he promptly ran up the nearest tree but couldn’t quite figure out how to climb back down as he has lived in cages all of his life and only had to jump from place to place. He caught on very quickly though and he disappeared into the trees.

I never saw him again until yesterday afternoon. I was out watering plants and he showed up on my potting bench right near where I had released him.

 I went and got a handful of nuts and he quickly climbed up my leg to have a snack…

 

He hasn’t lost a bit of his friendliness, that’s for sure!

My dear brother, (aka the Baby-Genius) had given me this knot hole that he salvaged from a tree that had been cut down in my oldest brother’s yard. I made an owl house out of it, but Jibbitz seems to like it quite a lot so it’s a ‘Jibbitz House’ now!

Checking it out.

 Hey, Looks pretty good!

 Yep, I’m moving in!

The joy and the sorrow

On June 5th we had some mighty powerful storms blow through these parts. Crazy heavy winds… enough to make me round up all of the sassy cats and head to the basement kind of winds! We lost our power for the night and part of the next day. I called the BRWC to see how they fared and it was much worse for them. Several huge trees down and no power for almost 4 days!

So since they didn’t have power, I went and got Jerry Mathers (my baby beaver) and a few squirrels since they all needed bottle feeding which requires electricity to warm the bottles.  What a lot of work! My hat is off to the real  rehabbers like Peg who do this all day every day!! 

I took them all back on the following Tuesday when I went in. Peg told me that she had found a rehabber in Virginia Beach who had mucho experience raising orphaned beavers and who had the proper enclosures to do the job right. She was willing to take Jerry, but not until sometime the following week. She also suggested that Jerry stay with his primary caregiver (ME) because it would be less stressful for him. JOY!!! I got to bring him home and we had sooooooo much fun!

 Playing in the pond…

Playing in the tub… with a sassy cat audience

Having fun in the front pond.

I took him to Baby-beaver Disneyworld (aka neighbor’s Nick & Jill’s pond) with a running stream and waterfall to play in! He took walks around the yard with me, sat on my lap and ate apples while we watched the news. He would crawl up onto my shoulder and fall asleep while I was at the computer. All of this was not only allowed, but encouraged by the expert beaver rehabber!!  You see, beavers normally have a large family group and have a lot of social interaction and it is necessaryfor their well-being!! I even read in a beaver book that some orphaned beavers have died from being isolated and alone. Apparently they don’t imprint on humans either. Well, they do until a certain age but then they decide they don’t need you anymore and become a ‘real’ beaver again.

So for almost two weeks I was a full time beaver mom. Kudos to all of you moms out there! I think baby beavers are much like real children… temper tantrums, attention demanding, whining, but cute and snuggly and sweet too.  It plumb wore me out though so I’m thinking my decision not to have kids was the right one. I guess I could have done it if it was ok to stick them in a cage when I got tired of them !LOL!!!

And then the sorrow… On Wednesday of this week I had to pack him up and meet the people who would transport him to his new home in Virginia beach. I drove him part way down to Fredericksburg Virginia and met them at a rest stop. There, I had to turn him over to them along with his bed and stuffed pony that he sleeps with at night. I took along some of his favorite snacks to eat on the road. I was a total blubbering idiot. My heart was completely broken and I felt like I was abandoning my baby.

Lesson learned, I cannot be a full-fledged rehabber, I get far to attached. I’ll have to stick with being a part time volunteer at the BRWC.

This pic was on our last day together…

I sure do miss the little goomba, the pond seems so empty without him.

Whole lot of cuteness going on

Geeze… I’m totally in love with my baby beaver. I spent ten hours at the BRWC today and got to feed her/him (can’t tell) several times. Then when the eating is done he/she has to go into the bath tub cuz beavers only poop in the water. (who knew?) How cute is this…

And our baby foxes are growing up so fast…

And I got to bottle feed these little guys…

There are three of them in the pic. So sweet and friendly!

These are the new coyote pups that came in. Their mom was shot. No snuggling with them, they imprint to quickly! (darn!)

I forgot to get a pic of the baby racoons. They are so amusing that you forget to do anything but watch them.

I’ll get one next week.

Well today was certainly interesting!

Yesterday(Sunday) afternoon I got a call from my bosses daughter saying that there was a baby beaver by the upper pond at work and they knew the mother had been killed (we won’t even go THERE right now).

 They didn’t know what to do. They had seen it on Saturday but hadn’t seen it on Sunday at all. They had torn apart the lodge to see if it was inside but it wasn’t. I told them that I would go up and have a look the first thing Monday morning fully expecting not to find anything.

Lo and behold I went up this morning and there was this little baby beaver sitting in the remains of the lodge! So I went over and it slipped into the water but stayed close and was making these pitiful little whining sounds. So what was I to do????

I sat on the bank of the pond and started making the sounds back to him of course! Then I started making other sounds just hoping that one of them might sound like a mama beaver. I felt like the crazy mockingbird  that sits on our chimney mimicking every bird in the neighborhood. Finally I made what must of been the right noise cuz out of the pond came the little beaver! I kept calling him and could tell he wasn’t sure about me in the least but I eventually creeped close enough that I could slip a net over him! He didn’t struggle at all. Oh my gosh he is the softest, cutest little thing!

I took him right over to the BRWC and reluctantly handed him over to Peg. She was kinda stunned that I was able to call him close enough to catch. This is her first beaver rehab so she said she needs to do some research tonight. I got to feed him his first bottle… I’m totally in love!  I can’t wait to go back tomorrow and see him. We just got in two coyote pups and from the looks of our ‘patient’ boards a lot more baby birds have come in too.  Going to be a busy day.

So now I’ll leave you to wonder at this little bundle of pure cuteness…

 what a face!

how sweet is that???

Now you’re all in love too right???

 

LET’S GO REDWINGS!!!!  (I know cheryl… you do not care!)

BRWC pictures

So here are the baby foxes after their baths…

the 7th one still must have been getting toweled off.

Here is the very 1st baby fox we got in… he was alone and Peg put out the word to other rehabbers that we needed a friend for him… I told her she needs to be really careful about what she wishes for (we have 15 baby foxes total right now!)! Anyway, this little one has kind of imprinted on humans and wants nothing more than to be picked up… we aren’t supposed to and it’s soooooooo hard not to! 

I was kneeling down to take the picture and he was trying to crawl onto my lap… those are my knees!

I swear I didn’t pet him!

 

 

 

 

And here’s Mr. Rudy, perching on a real branch just like a big bird should!

Go Rudy!!!

So when I was at the BRWC last Tuesday we were talking about Rudy and his lack of recent progress. Although, he has improved a lot since I brought him in. When I take him his plate of chopped mice he actually manages to get to his feet and walk (quite unsteadily) right to me as he squeals and loudly tells me that he’s starving! He promptly falls down onto his butt at my feet though

We were feeling pretty discouraged that his progress has stalled for the last couple of weeks and I was getting worried about what might happen to him if this is as far as he was going to go in his recovery.

THEN, yesterday Peg called me to tell me that when she went out to his cage Mr Rudy had managed to get himself up onto a perch about a foot off of the ground and was keeping his balance (although he didn’t stay balanced too long)!! But… Woo Hoo, THAT is a huge step forward and certainly will buy him some more time to continue to improve.

Mouse parts in the laundry

I knew I was going to love working at the BRWC but I didn’t realize how MUCH I was going to love it. It’s not pretty work most of the time… a lot of very dirty and really gross laundry to do, poop to clean up, mice and rats to chop… yuk! Certainly not glamorous work by any stretch of the imagination!

But when you see the animals making improvements daily and you know that they would have died if it wasn’t for the work being done out there… it’s just such a great feeling to be a part of that.

On Monday I drove out to New Market (a town about 45 minutes from here) and picked up a nest of baby squirrels whose tree had been blown down the night before. Their eyes were still closed and they were starting to get a little bit of gray fuzz.  February is really early for babies to start being born. I guess the warmer than normal days a while back got the parents feeling ‘frisky’ instead of sleepy. These little guys would certainly have frozen to death if the nice people hadn’t found them and kept them in the house over night. They are now in the hands of a home-rehabilitator who can give them the labor intensive care that they need. They probably wouldn’t have felt very comfortable in the room at the center that is filled with hawks and owls anyway!

BRWC

Yesterday was a good day at the wildlife center.

First thing when I got there Peg said there’s a Red Tail down in Woodstock (a small town about an hour or so away… no, not that Woodstock) so, we drove all the way down there and trudged though the woods on the side of a mountain but we couldn’t find it. The people that called said they had seen it five days in a row and were shocked that we couldn’t find it.  After a couple of hours and a pretty good workout we gave up and told them to call us back if they saw it again.  It was a disappointing way to start the day.

But then we went back to the center and started to feed the critters and things got better. Tater, the woodchuck who is a permanent resident and education ambassador came out of his den and chirped and make these adorable little noises letting us know that he wished to be groomed.  So we went into his enclosure and scratched his back really hard. He enjoyed it soooooo much that he started clicking his teeth together really fast… I can’t quite explain the sound in type, but I can tell you it was obviously a sound of pure rapture. The problem is, that when Tater is happy with his grooming he wants to return the favor and groom you back and that  hurts! In case you didn’t know, groundhogs are very soft… I was expecting him to have a very coarse feeling coat, but he kinda felt like a cat actually.

After that, I got Rudy out and did a bit of physical therapy with him. We are trying to help him remember what his legs are for. He is able to move his talons now and kick out his legs, but something short circuits when he tries to walk or stand on them. BUT, when I took him outside to a larger enclosure, he did run across it before he collapsed into a heap… sounds kind of bad, but it’s really a big improvement from when I first captured him. GO RUDY!!!

I’m going to go out again on Friday. It just feels good to be out there and helping .

The Reward!

I went with Peg from the BRWC to do the hawk release. (It was a Red- Shouldered Hawk, not a Red- Tail)

We went to a Pre-school in a little town called Upperville, VA. The kids were teeny-tiny and seemed very excited about things… one little boy even yelled out   “I am SOOOOOO EXCITED!”  it was cute.

So Peg did a little talk for the kids… she is an excellent teacher and speaker. And then she handed over the hawk to the school’s principle for release.  I managed to snap a great shot as he regained his freedom…

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Blue Ridge Wildlife Center-4, originally uploaded by Weluvthat.

There were two reporters there from a couple of small local papers. The center is trying to get the word out that they exist and need donations!

After the release I went back and spent another full day helping with chores. I learned how to force feed a hawk… very interesting… and then I got to practice what I learned.

Even with two other volunteers there besides me yesterday it was a very full and tiring day. 

I gave Rudolph a bath and some physical therapy. I don’t think he was particularly happy with me.

The skunk from the day before had to be euthanized.

Happily no new animals were brought in yesterday at least not by the time I left at 5:00.

busy day yesterday at the B.R.W.C.

So yesterday was my third day at the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center.

I get there about 9:00 a.m. and there is a note on the door from Peggy telling me to go on in as she was on her way to get another Screech Owl.  So I busied myself doing laundry, changing light bulbs, stacking firewood, and whatever else I could see that needed doing until Peg got back.

As soon as she got back we got a call from a lady saying they we’re bringing in an injured SKUNK! “Oh THIS is going to be interesting” I thought to myself.

So we got started on the day-to-day feeding, cleaning ect for the animals when another call came in from a nearby vet clinic saying they had 2 injured hawks for us to pick up. We were scrambling to get crates set up for them when the people with the skunk showed up. They had him trapped in a garbage can. I stood back and watched Peg just open up the can and pull the skunk out with out even a second thought! She is really a pro! She was lamenting earlier in the day that she couldn’t find any goggles because when you get sprayed in the face by a skunk it really burns your eyes. She was very matter-of-fact about it and didn’t seem the least bit concerned that she may get sprayed!

Luckily, since I don’t have a rabies vaccination I’m not allowed to touch any mammals when they are first brought in. I’m NOT disappointed about that!

Anyway, this poor skunk wasn’t in any shape to spray anyone. He had head trauma and his eyes were swollen shut. He went into a seizure a little while later. Peg didn’t really think he was going to survive.

Peg left to go and get the 2 hawks from the vet clinic while I went up to feed Rudolph. He is still showing very small signs of improvement… flaring his tail is his latest. But he will be with us for awhile.

Our vet, Belinda Burwell came in awhile later and checked out all of the new arrivals. Sadly, the skunk was going to be euthanized that evening. The owl and one of the hawks have fractures which should heal. One hawk had some head trauma and a badly damaged eye so I’m not sure what will happen with him.

It was crazy busy all day and I didn’t leave until 6:00p.m.

Today is going to be a good day though… I’m going back out there to participate in the release of a beautiful Red Tail Hawk at a near-by elementary school.

2nd day at the wildlife center

Well my second day volunteering wasn’t nearly as exciting as the first. But it was still very rewarding.

There were a few new animals to look after. A black vulture, and a couple of new screech owls.

I sucked it up and cut up some dead mice… not pleasant but I’ll get used to it.

Rudolph the red-tailed-hawk is about the same. Since he can’t stand up I held him while he ate his nicely chopped mice. He is definitely strong with the will to keep going.