Camera Bop

So this is what happens when you let your camera get too close to an over-inquisitive little fox. Now I have a nose-shaped smoodge on my camera lens. But that's okay, because cuddle time with Rosie is always worth the mess.

In other news, it was a gorgeous day at Red Wolf Sanctuary today, and a very productive one besides that. We fed all of the animals, cleaned the bears, played with Rosie, cleaned the big cats' enclosures, and built a new fox pen for Miss Rosie. Paul was giving a tour this morning, so he left the division of meat to us Junior volunteers. Let me tell you all about Paul's method for feeding - there is none. Most of it is guess work and judging the weight of the food buckets by "feel". I am good at neither of these processes. To make matters worse, the meat that was donated included quite a bit of pork sausage and links that can actually harm the animals because of all of the spices and salt. Through in the added factor that I was the most experienced volunteer present at the moment (I had been to Red Wolf a total of 6 times, and only fed once before...), and you have one very confusing morning.

 Once we got too confused and fed up to continue trying to figure out meat rations, we retreated to the bears. At least shoveling poo is relatively straightforward. Taking care of bears effectively took up the rest of the morning. Tuck and Pokey decided that they thought it would be really fun to lunge at me every time I passed by their cages. Also, the other volunteers thought it was a hoot to stop the hose every time I went into an enclosure to rinse. So that was fun.

Bears took up the rest of the morning, and then it was Rosie time. I took quite a few photos, and Rosie was being very photogenic, as usual.

Rosie running the office!

After we wore Rosie out, we ate lunch outside at the picnic table because it was so pretty and breezy outside. We gobbled our lunches down and then split up. The boys went to feed the animals (we found out later that they lost a ham...it escaped down a steep hillside) and Indre and I went to take care of the cats. Taking care of the cats involved disposing of maggot-infested carcasses, cleaning blood stains, and sweeping up large quantities of maggot pupae (it looks like brown rice, if you are curious).

Midway through cleaning the cat enclosures, Paul pulls up with a Fox 19 New guy in tow. As Paul likes to say, nothing is every planned at Red Wolf Sanctuary...Paul told Indre and I to go collect some extra fence from the fox pens down the hill and then went to be interviewed by the news man. Now we get to the entertaining part.

Part one is that there was some confusion on exactly which fences pieces we needed. Naturally, I go running down the lane, waving my hands and trying to get Paul's attention so I can ask my question. What I did not realize is that the Chanel 19 News guy is filming the very same lane that I am frolicking down, waving my arms like a goon. So that was fun (In the end, they decided to retake the shot. Can't imagine why).

On to part two. Now we know which fence sections we need. So the two guy volunteers, Justin and Kirk, drove Paul's big truck to the fox enclosures so that we could drive the extra fencing back to where we are building Rosie's temporary home. The fence is longer than the bed, so the plan was to drive backwards up the hill with the fences in the bed of the truck. Otherwise, we risked the fence sliding right off the bed and back down the hill. It was a good idea, in theory. However, add in some sandy soil and two guys trying to give each other directions on how to drive out of being stuck down a hill, and you get one very funny situation. Indre and I considered trying to offer help, and then decided against it. We had a very good view of their misadventures and I was feeling a little vindictive from the whole hose situation earlier today. So about fifteen minutes of struggling later, the boys end up in the exact same spot they started in, but they looked very pleased with themselves none the less. To make a long story short, we got the fence where it needed to go and built the pen. It is not quite ready for Rosie yet, as it still needs to be escape-proofed and get some soil put down on the floor, but we're almost ready to free Paul's bathroom from the clutches of the fox!

I was on the news, though. You could see me walking away in the background. I checked, and got really excited when I saw my blurry self walking away looking relatively normal.