Home Alone and Then Not

After months of Steve and I being on our own apart from our animals. Well what can I say MY PARENTS ARE COMING TO STAY THE NIGHT. Don't get me wrong I love my parents my dads one request was though was that he didn't have to sleep with a possum, so apart from doing a major overall on the cleaning we have had to find new rooms for many of our animals as they take up a huge part of our lives so having a possum per room etc you can get the drift. Lots of shuffling and not many happy campers. Just hope the dog and cat don't scratch on our bedroom door where my parents are sleeping wanting to come in.

Tawny Frogmouths

The last couple of months have been pretty full on with work and wildlife. We have had so many birds come in and out of our care it is scary. At the moment it is the bird season or what we call the silly season. Steve and I are very involved with the wildlife and the organisation that we are affiliated with which is called BARN (Brisbane Area Rescue Network). It takes up a huge chunk of our lives but I feel it is worth it and we get great satisfaction out of releasing an injured or baby animal that has come into care, back into its native environment. I have previewed many animals in my blog that we have had in care and that have been successfully released back out into the wild. This coming weekend we are going to release one of our long term possums, he is a big boy and is very healthy now.

Our latest birds in care people often mistake for owls but they are Tawny Frogmouths. I feel it will be a big leaning experience for both Steve and myself as we have to teach them to hunt for wild game such as mice etc. should be fun (I think).

Tawny Frogmouths

As well as caring and rehabilating baby and injured animals we take the rescue phone over once a month and have recently published a calendar of some of the animals that have come into care to help raise money for our organisation to help carers buy cages and necessary equipment and food for the care of the animals.

I am just starting to grasp the enormity of how many of our wildlife is brought into care due to human development of our native wildlife habitate areas and the impact it holds over our future generations and our survival. It is quite scary, I fear for future generations and what they will face due to the impacts of urban developers who are encroaching and destroying the natural environment of so many animals.

Gloria the Cockatoo

Last week we took into care a cockatoo that had been clipped by a car. No major damage to the car I have been told and no major damage to the cockatoo which we have named Gloria. She is a beautiful bird but she has a beak which can crack walnuts and fingers so I found out on my first encounter with this beauty. I silly me was very game and decided to remove her from the vets cage and put her into ours with just a pair of gloves and a towel. Not a good idea I think to even go near a cockatoo and their beak without a suit of armour is a stupid move. Gloria came close to totally deadening any nerves I have in my finger. She got hold and was not going to let go. The swelling and bruising is now starting to ease after a week.

Steve and I have decided big parrots are not our calling. We have had to get Gloria out every day to treat her wing and let her have some exercise and we have learnt how to do this with out ever touching her. Never again will I handle a cockatoo with out welding gloves and a sheet of metal between us.

Gloria telling and showing us who is boss. She is.

Oh What A Day

Today I had a moment when I wished the ground would have opened up and swallowed me. Have you ever had a day when you have things go from hectic to stupid.

All my life I have been brought up around cars and the mechanics of them. My Dad is an ex cabbie who did all the maintenance on his cabs for the 25 years he was an owner driver and I used to love hanging out in the garage watching and helping when I could and Dad taught me well. I knew just about everything to look for when something happened to one of my cars and how to fix it.

Well today after a an extremely hectic day at work I went down to the car I am borrowing at the moment as Steve is away and has ours and it wouldn't start, all thought process went out the window, I presumed I had a flat battery as that was the symbol on the dash, so I rang my daughters partner who is part owner of the car with her I am borrowing and checked a few details and found they were part of the RACQ our road service here and they were. So I called and a lovely man from RACQ came out and checked the battery which he said was fine, then he got into the car and turned to me and said it would normally start if you put into park. At that moment I wished for the ground to open and swallow me.

I then came home to find my tilt-a-door wire broken and not being able to open it.

Oh what a day.

Home Alone

For many years now there has always been someone living at home and now the house is bare. I think the old saying empty nest is coming into play for me at the moment. My youngest has left home and now there is just Steve and I (and Steve is in Armidale for UNI residential so there is just me) god it is lonely. But I still have our five possums, four lorikeets, four chickens, a dog and cat to keep me company and busy (but none of them can hold a decent conversation). I have listened to music (Steve took all the good stuff to Armidale) so even that is running low with what is left and TV is so boring. So after a long time of not writing in my blog because I have been so busy I now find I have time.

I have taken some pictures of our little darlings. Below is a picture of Pinky who weighed 100 grams on entering this home and is now well over 200 grams ( and no is she not eating a worm it is a part of a leaf as she is vegetarian) and the little head is Yoda who came into care weighing 50 grams there is another photo below of him and he now weighs over 160 grams.






Gollum above is my problem possum not wanting to eat but not wanting to give up and neither will I.


This is Yoda was 50 grams now budda. Previous photos in my blog show just how little he was. He is doing really well.

I have had so many ups and downs lately I look to the future and pray that it is brighter. Who ever said that life in your forties is great needs to be ArGGGGGhhhhh, ( shot) maybe some days are good and some not. I suppose that is life whether it is your forties or when ever.

Our Freezer is full

Sad to say but our freezer is full. Why you might ask is that sad, usually people have food in their freezer so if it full it is usually a good thing but sad to say our freezer is filled with dead birds waiting for burial. Our past weekend was not good on the wildlife front we did a couple of rescues and the fate of the ones up for rescue was not a happy one.

Steve and I take the good with the bad and try to deal with it as best we can. But never the less our freezer at this point is full.

Dreaming

I feel like I never had six months off to study. I am back to working in my locked office with no windows. I enjoy the work the days fly by but I would ultimately love to be working in the environment and with animals, maybe that day will come. I am sure everyone has dreams of their dream job but reality is you need to earn the almighty dollar to survive and the job you have is better than none.

As wildlife carers I get to dabble in my dreams. Our babies and some of our rescues.

Gollum brushtail 100grams in our care.

Pelican rescue

Duckling rescue

Our ringtails in our care.

All our animals in care hopefully will survive and be returned to the wild.