Duck

Today marks two full weeks that L has been gone.  She will be home this weekend.  Finally!  She's already prepared me for the fact that she has a tan, despite using sunscreen, so I would be less freaked out when I saw the actual sun damage.  She's had a lot of fun this week and spent time on the canoe, paddle boat, jet ski, and a pontoon, and has been on a turtle and fish finding mission.  Her rats will be happy to see her again, but her hamster, Harley, will be especially happy, because she does not like me very much.

Harley is a singleton right now, because that type of hamster will not share territory with another, and they will violently fight.  I suspect she may be happier though, with another hamster in another cage near her, so they can see and smell one another. I am looking further into this, because it's important that our animals are as happy as they can possibly be.

I've spent a great deal of time trying to win her over, but she does not get comfortable and relaxed when she's out with me like she does with L. She likes me to talk to her and is happy to take the food and treats I give her, but she just doesn't enjoy me handling her.  I won't force myself upon her, but it makes me feel really bad.  Animals (the non-human variety anyway) always love me. It's strange when they don't.

We ended up taking yet another unexpected trip to Madison last night to Four Lakes Wildlife Rehab Center.  We've made that trip many, many times in the last couple of weeks.  Fledgling season and the storms are rough for baby birds. Last night's passenger was a very young duckling--probably mallard, but possibly wood duck.  She still had her egg tooth, which was so adorable.  She was found alone in the road near Rotary Gardens, and there were no other duck families anywhere in the vicinity. Odd.  We had a snuggly car ride, and it was really hard to let her go.  I miss my Jemima duck and was having fantasies of keeping the baby for very selfish reasons.  There were other little ducks there for her to join and another singleton orphan that was being dropped off after our little one.  

One thing that I've learned after over 30 years of working with animals is that despite their species (with very few exceptions), they want to be with others of their own kind more than anything else. They are just like us in that way. I do not believe any social animal (which includes all the animals kept as "pets"), even the most loved, desperately crave understanding from and communication with their own kind and no matter how loved and pampered they are, will never be happy as an "only". It's a universal need.  Having singleton species animals causes me great stress, as it seems really cruel to me, and I do my best to avoid whenever possible.

So the high point of leaving our duck at the clinic was when we left the DCHS grounds.  I love the location and the surrounding prairie there, but it was awesome last night at around 8:30 when we left. There were hundreds of rabbits along the  access drive eating contentedly.  I'm sure many of them were releases from Four Lakes.  We were driving very slowly so we could enjoy watching the buns eat, when we saw a beautiful female deer also eating in a very relaxed manner.  Seeing these animals so happy and peaceful really made my night.  It was very exciting!h b27wwwwwww  ( added by Trixie the rat, who refuses to respect my "No walking on the keyboard" rule.)

Mother's Day surprises

My daughters made me the best mother's day gifts!  They each painted a picture of a raven, and they are in completely different styles. I knew they were making me something--that's our deal--I don't want anything purchased, so they can make me something, give me their time, or give me nothing. I'm glad they respect my gift-receiving preferences!  They spent several days over at Dej's house working on my gifts as well as my mom's.  I didn't know what they were making for either of us, though.

When the big day arrived, I was so curious to see what they had been spending so much time on. Besides the fact that I love birds in general, and I like ravens as they are one of the more unloved birds, I had fallen in love with a raven painting I saw in a gallery (Raven's Wish) over a year ago, and I've been stalking the painting since then.  I thought it was so sweet that they remembered. I resolved that I was very happy with the ravens and wouldn't need to go visit the other painting anymore.

*Dej says her painting isn't quite finished.  She needs to add some thing(s) to the flowers. Much to her dismay, I'm enjoying it as it is and will not wait for her to finish it up.

My mom got a set of owl paintings from the girls, and though I wanted to keep them, I have settled for getting to enjoy them when I'm at my mom's several times a week. :)

We had our Mother's Day get-together at my mom's, and when we got home L was very pushy about picking a spot for my ravens.  I tried to discourage her, because I was pretty sure I wanted them in the dining room but the dining room was a mess as we were in the midst of stripping the wallpaper (YUK!!!), and there was no point hanging them yet. She was so excited, so I went along with her to walk around the house and site the perfect spot for them, figuring I would just temporarily stick them up in the dining room someplace and pick the perfect spot when the room was done.  As soon as we walked into the dining room, I was immediately confused, followed by shock. The raven painting I had been stalking was hanging on my dining room wall, and I had no clue how it got there.

Obviously L was in on it, which explained her pushiness about marching me around the house, so I asked her if grandma & grandpa had done this. My parents frequently show up with surprises for me, especially if I make the mistake of saying I like/want something.  She said they were not responsible. That left my husband, which was odd. We don't exchange gifts (I'm not his mother), and I do the household finances, and I would have noticed a purchase of that size.  He had squirrelled some money away, managed to pick up the giant canvas, hide it in our home (L's closet) for a week, and get it hung on the wall without me having any clue. I would not have thought that surprise possible.  I still find the whole thing a little mind blowing and confusing!  

It's awesome to have 3 raven paintings in the dining room that I absolutely love to look at.  The wallpaper is completely stripped now, and the three paintings are hanging up so I can enjoy them.  I'm planning to get the dining room painted this week, and then I can hang them in there permanent locations and get the placement, spacing and leveling taken care of. I can't wait to get the walls painted and the ravens hung on a wall that will complement and offset their beauty!

L's raven is done in the galaxy style, which she has been experimenting with lately. I love it. She made herself a pair of shoes (plain black Tom's painted and sealed) and also used the galaxy pattern on the sun she painted for this year's Rotary Gardens art fundraiser.

Rattus norvegicus

We've had an empty nest (empty of human children, anyway) since Friday, when L left for a fifteen day trip with her grandparents.  I've never been apart from her for this length of time before, and it's already very strange.  I've been left in charge of her babies (seven rats and a hamster) and have inherited her other animal-care chores (just some minor duties for the rabbits and guinea pigs) while she's gone.

Trixie, one of the 1-yr old girls rats, recently had a tumor removed at the UW Vet School Clinic. The tumor was benign, but it began growing very aggressively and quickly became enormous (the size of a kiwi fruit), interfering with her mobility and needed to be removed before it started interfering with her elimination. The tumor was in a very bad spot--back between her legs, wrapped through the genitals and organs, so our vet didn't feel comfortable doing the surgery. She was healthy otherwise, so after many vet visits and tests, Dr. Baker at the vet school successfully removed the tumor. Because it was a mammary tumor, it was hormone fed, so Trixie was given an implant--basically a chemical spay--so it doesn't return.

We are planning to get implants in the other four girls as soon as our regular vet receives the implants. These will help prevent similar tumors in the other girls.  We've also discovered that they will be vital for restoring peace to the colony.

Trixie was the dominant "alpha" rat prior to the implant, and she returned much more mellow and uninterested in being in charge. That kind of threw the rest of the girls into chaos. Thursday night, sometime after midnight, L came running down to tell me that Star had been bitten by one of her sisters (the one who seems most interested in being in charge now, and she was also in heat at the time), and it was obvious that she would need stitches. It wasn't actively bleeding, so we were able to get her fixed up and set until morning, when we could get her stitched up. We brought her home Friday afternoon, all stitched up and ready to come home in her cone of shame. She's on clavamox (antibiotic) and metacam (pain drugs) twice a day, and I have to watch for an abscess. So far it looks good. Luce left a couple of hours later.  I get stressed about keeping everything straight with their various drugs, food, treats, play time routines, and now I have the additional stress of poor Star, who is temporarily in a cage by herself (we don't want her siblings to remove the stitches for her) in an e-collar. 

She's lonely and depressed, so I have to spend several extra hours in her room with Star out for socialization and collar-free time. She has to be watched constantly, because we don't want her chewing on/licking her wound.  Yesterday she was obsessed with it, and I was up distracting her about every 2-3 minutes. Today, she didn't bother it at all, which makes me really want to leave the horrible collar off of her. BUT if I did that, and she reopened her wound, L would be very unhappy with me. When I put the collar back on her after her free time, I feel like a horrible, cruel vivisector. She knows what's coming and hates it, and fights it, and has no comprehension of why I'm doing something so seemingly cruel to her. I would so rather L was here being the bad guy. It bothers her less.

Despite the fact that I'm not thrilled about spending a total of 3-4 hours in my daughter's room every day when I should be doing other things, the little guys are so much fun to spend time with! They are smart and funny and very entertaining.  This afternoon, Dej came over to hang with the rats and me, while the guys (Mark, my dad, and Russ) were at the Superman movie.  We played with the rats and worked on selected her classes for UWW next fall.

Flower loves to drink out of cups and wouldn't leave Dej's water alone.  I had to chuckle, because even we, animal freaks extraordinaire, have our limits. Dej had no problem drinking the water after Flower helped herself. When Flower came back for more, she liked it so well, she jumped up on the cup and drank it and got her feet in it. That was the limit. Dej had to get a fresh refill, because she wouldn't drink after the feet. Of course Flower helped herself to the refill as well, but at least she didn't put her feet in it again.

L left me directions (these are just the rat directions; hamster directions are in a different location.) and was very pointed about the treats. Apparently I am not to be trusted (she thinks I'm a pushover with the rats) totally with their treats, as yet again, she has written in all caps, "ONE A DAY."

Garden update

I've been really focused on getting the garden in shape since I got my semester wrapped up.  I'm making pretty good progress with weeding, but there's still much to be done.  I am determined to stay ahead of the bindweed and nut sedge this year.  I've been fighting with them for a few years now and can't seem to beat them.  It's a major effort just to keep up with those two, and since they are the most problematic to the garden, I have to win this one.

I've moved and raised about half of the flagstone path so far, and I'm very happy to have that done.  I'm not sure I will get to the rest of the path this year.  I fixed the worst of it, and there are several other projects that are a bit more pressing (though I'm not doing anything else until the weeds are totally under control).

We have all of the food "crops" planted but haven't gotten any other plants yet this year.  We usually get lots of annuals for color and a few perennials to add or replace those that didn't return, but with the vet bills that have left us completely decimated, we have decided to skip the flowers and focus on the food this year. It won't look as pretty, but we will enjoy it just as much.  In an ideal world, I would love to be able to grow all of the food my family (humans & animals) eat, but that's not realistic.  So far we've been enjoying the fresh greens (as have our rabbits, guinea pigs, and birds) and herbs from the garden but will have to be patient for the rest of the delicious food.

The roses are looking really nice right now, but I have maybe another couple of weeks before the shitty little Japanese beetles appear and completely destroy the (hybrid tea) roses.  The only organic solution I can find is applying milky spore to the ground. That kills the grubs.  I'm just not comfortable doing that.  I also can't bring myself to execute the other solution, which is to hand remove them and throw them in soapy water to drown.  It's maddening to watch my beautiful roses destroyed every year!  I keep hoping each year, that something new will be discovered that will solve the JB problem, but nothing so far.

I should be gardening right now, but I'm struggling with hand mobility and pain today.  I've done so much gardening lately, that the host of issues in my hands are all at their worst.  I'll probably sneak a little work in between the dogs' vet appointment (in a few minutes) and dinner (jambalya, which I already have made and just need to heat up).   I had initially planned to paint the dining room today, because the weather forecast called for storms/rain today, but I'm not able to hold a brush or roller today, so that's out.

I'm very anxious to get the dining room painted, now that we finally finished stripping the wallpaper and getting the walls prepped, because of some awesome and surprising mother's day gifts I received. More on that in the next post.

Kalaanjali Annual Day

I'm still alive and survived another intense semester. I'm planning to start blogging again--I just couldn't keep up with everything once my students started their big semester project in Java.  I have a heinous migraine tonight, so I'm just posting the video from Luciana's Annual Day performance yesterday.

The orchestra was from India, so the first time they practiced the dance with the music was Friday night's rehearsal.  L was very frustrated, because she messed up a bit on her hands in part of the performance, but it was a very challenging piece, and they had less than half the time they usually spend learning a new dance.  I'm proud of her--she worked really hard and did quite well on a difficult piece.  She was also hormonal, feeling unwell, having major knee pain, and was a bit emotionally "off", but she still got up there and did a good job!

The second video is a portion of one of the acts in the ballet they performed. It was an awesome number--one of my favorites, but my arms were very tired of holding the camera up, and I wanted to just watch and enjoy the rest of the dance.  The orchestra accidentally skipped a portion of the  music, so the girls had a confusing moment of trying to figure out where they needed to pick up the dance, which was now shorter than intended.