We Had To Put Baby In A Corner
I get it, nobody puts baby in a corner. But hear me out.
We practically have more babies than square footage. There is literally a baby or babiessss in every corner.
Cages are full of bigs and littles, incubators are full of tinies and all of the outdoor enclosures have a name on them.
It's baby season.
Hell, put me in a corner.
It started slow with two littles, Hugo and then Penelope. Both opossums. Then little Fern Farris, a tiny opossum about 6 weeks old. They got set up in the sanctuary and tucked in for the night.
Just when you think things are too getting quiet in the sanctuary, at this point even Diggie Smalls is radio silent, the sky falls out.
In came the Horacio 5 (opossums), followed by the La Vernia 9 (6 week old opossums) and a baby squirrel named Penguin.
Whenever litters are brought in it's hard enough to keep up with their color tagging for identification, so names for each become obsolete. These babies get named after some sort of location. The five littles found on North San Horacio Ave become the Horacio 5. The nine tinies found in La Vernia, you get the picture.
Who The Heck Is Dave?
At one point things were getting a little chaotic I actually introduced myself to a finder incorrectly.
I literally held out my hand to return his handshake and out of my mouth was "Hi, I'm Dave".
Who the hell is Dave?
After I scrambled to correct myself, I'm sure he was considering taking the animal somewhere else but luckily I recovered.
We're all a little tired here.
The littles and tinies need to be fed almost around the clock. Tinies are fed formula with a syringe or tube every few hours while the littles alternate between formula and smoothie.
On top of the new babies, we have our lifers and other animals in care that apparently also need to be fed. According to some of them, they're STARVING to death.
Things move very fast around here so the concept of sleeping in, or at all, is about as far fetched as Britney going back on tour. (someone check on her please)
As long as everyone gets fed, meds, cleaned, put back in their pens and is safe, who the hell cares what I call myself. Tired. Hi, I'm Tired. Good to meet you.
The Great Escape
You'd think that with animals breaking in to live at the sanctuary the ones that are already here would stop trying to get out.
Wrong.
Not Camilla.
Our precious Camilla the raccoon has this little thing she likes to do called The Great Escape.
She sneaks out and literally has a party doing who knows what under the buildings and when she gets tired of eating out of the compost, she puts HERSELF in the trap and waits to be put back in her enclosure.
Until the next time.
This weekend was no different. I actually believe she plans her escapades around our busiest days.
Her longest time out on the lam was 4 days.
She doesn't go far, doesn't even leave the yard, but refuses to come to you when you call for her. Watching you from under the shop and only coming out after you walk away.
"You're a rehabber, you need to take better care of those animals!" you say?
Have you ever met a raccoon??
Seriously though, I assure you, every precaution is taken and yet sometimes we rehabbers have an animal out smart us. This entire process is a game of out wit, out play, out last.
We're just trying to survive.
Send help. Hell, send Dave.
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