About a month ago, one of my raccoons was filmed for a Georgia Lottery commercial. Here's the commercial, which just started airing last week!



Admittedly, the raccoon looks a little dumb (and there's another one off to the far right, which you can't see very well on the YouTube video), but whatever. It's still neat!

This is the e-mail exchange I just had with my dad:
----------------------------------------
From: Elizabeth
To: Dad

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/10/27/141732668/high-tech-shoes-aim-to-stop-wandering-alzheimers-patients----------------------
From: Dad
To: Elizabeth

I like the Velcro straps.  I have a pair at home just like them and they are very soft.

Thank you for thinking about me and my safety.   I guess I will just have to do with the electric fence.
------------------------------------------

Ha!

I did! Dustin (dustinhartman) and I met on LJ back in 2003. We had a common friend (Dan, whom neither of us had met IRL at that point). We commented back and forth in Dan's LJ, and then Dustin started commenting on my LJ. We friended each other, then started chatting online, then he called me on the phone. Three months after we met online, we met in person. Three and a half years after that, we got married!  We were featured in LJ's ten year anniversary book, Livejournal: The First Decade!

Not only did I meet my husband on LJ, but I've also met a lot of great friends through LJ.  I met many of them through loversfaraway, a community for people in long distance relationships (which D and I were in for the majority of the time we dated), and then later through weddingplans. I've met some of them in person (chasingangie05 and cynicalsiren came to my wedding, even!). thejoysofjess even hugged me the last time we saw each other, when we met up with noexplaination and her babies! I consider this a huge triumph, because apparently she is not a hugger. Even though many of the friends I met through LFA and WP are no longer in those communities, we still stay an active part of each other's lives.

I've also become part of two tight-knit groups of LJ women, HB and T&C. Both groups mean so much to me and I've formed fantastic friendships through these groups. We've blurred the lines between LJ friends and real friends - we send e-mails, texts, snail mail, and packages back and forth. I consider y'all some of my closest friends, and I really want to meet y'all in person! (Seriously, silsbycarr, you ARE coming out to visit next summer to help me with baby animals!)

Today, Dustin and I released 20 raccoons! It was so much fun to watch them explore their new home. :-) Check out the video!

This is, by far, the craziest (and most dangerous!) encounter I've had with someone who's giving me an animal.

Kaitlyn called me back in April because she had found a baby raccoon. Her first question to me was "Are you going to kill it?" I should've known that this was going to be a crazy one. I told her that I can't make that promise until I look at the animal, but I do not take euthanasia lightly and I try to avoid it if possible. She told me that she didn't trust a lot of people, and even though everyone she called either told her that they would euthanize it or she should call me, she still wasn't sure about my ability to rehab her baby. I told her that she's welcome to come out to my house that weekend and inspect my "facility" if she wanted to. She promised to call me the next day once she figured out her schedule.

Well, she didn't call at all that weekend, and never answered my six phone calls and voicemails over the next two weeks. I assumed that the raccoon had probably died and she just didn't want to tell me, so I stopped trying to reach her.

You can see where this is going.

This morning, her nickname ("Crazy Lady Who Wants to Interview Me," as I entered her into my phonebook) popped up on my phone. See for a snippet of the phone call I had with Crazy Lady today She still had the raccoon and it was getting too big so she needed to find a home for it. She said that she was going to give me the raccoon earlier, but she heard a rumor that I kill raccoons, so she wanted to keep it until it was old enough to survive “at [my] hands."

(Side note: 1. I've never heard this about myself, but I don’t hold much stake in what she tells me. Feel free to let me know if I should be concerned, and 2) If I DO just kill animals, then why wouldn’t I just kill this one, regardless of age?).

She said that the raccoon was getting too big to play with her cats and her children (!!!!!!!), so it was time to find her a new home. We agreed that I would stop by her house to pick the raccoon up.

I get to her house and she gives me the raccoon. I put it in the carrier and hand her my intake form to fill out.

"What is this?"
"The Department of Natural Resources requires us to have this information. You don't have to fill out your exact address - just the city and state is fine. If you don't want to fill it out, that's okay - I already have your information. I just need you to initial and sign these two paragraphs..."
"What do they say?"
"It's legal jargon releasing me of liability if you, your dependents, or your pets get sick because you've all been exposed to the raccoon."
"I'm not going to sign that."

At this point, I had already picked up the raccoon and was headed back to my car.
"That's fine, but I will have to keep the raccoon quarantined for two weeks and if it shows any neurological symptoms in that time period, I'll be submitting it for rabies testing."

I had just gotten into my car, put the raccoon on the seat beside me, and (thank God) locked the doors.
"How do you test for rabies?"
"Decapitation and testing of the brain matter."

And then hell broke loose. She started charging at me so I quickly that I put the truck in drive to get away, but not before she had JUMPED ON THE HOOD OF THE TRUCK AND STARTED POUNDING ON THE WINDSHIELD. I immediately slammed on the brakes and she slid off the truck, grabbing onto the side mirror. I thought she was off, so I tried to go forward again, DRAGGING HER, who was still holding onto the side mirror, in the process. I stopped fairly immediately once I realized that no, she had not, in fact, let go of the truck.

She wasn't hurt, but she screamed for her children (who were inside) to call 911, presumably because I had "stolen her raccoon and I was going to kill it." She had 911 on the phone and I told her "Ma'am, if you get the police to come out here, you will get fined and possibly jail time for keeping a raccoon as a pet. This raccoon will be euthanized and tested in that situation." She hung up the phone.

I explained to her that the raccoon is not showing any neurological symptoms right now and I don't suspect she will, but I have people sign that liability waiver just in case. I said it was to protect me and my family in the event that anything happened, and if she refused to sign it, then I would need to submit the raccoon for testing. She started yelling at me and calling me every name in the book. I opened up my window a crack, offered the paper for her to sign, but she refused and threatened to tell everyone she knew not to contact me if they had wild animals that needed to be saved. Okay, crazy lady.

She also proceeded to tell me that there was a vet's office in Alpharetta who could do a test that wouldn't require euthanizing the animal (while there IS a test like that available, it is NOT FDA approved, it's in the early trial stages, and the test manufacturer warns that it is not very accurate). I explained this to her, and also explained that when it comes down to it, her children's lives are more important than the raccoons. She was calmer now, and had managed to step back some, had stepped far enough back from the truck that I felt comfortable driving off without possibly hitting her, so I drove off.

I managed to keep my cool pretty well while in the situation, but it was extremely scary. When she was on the hood of the truck, there were only two things flashing in my mind: Get Out Of This Situation Now and Don’t Hurt Her. Those two thoughts could not be accomplished at once.

Crazy lady never told me what she named this raccoon, so Dustin came up with a name for her “CBR” (pronounced “Coober”) – Crazy Bitch’s Raccoon. ;-)

This just a short snippet of some of the wildlife phone calls I've had recently. My thoughts are in Italics.

Woman: Hi, I have a mother raccoon and four babies that are in my yard.
Me: ...*Waiting to hear the problem*
Woman: I need them removed from my yard.
Me: Why?
Woman: I don't want them to live there.
Me: Well, raccoons are wild animals and as such, they live in nature. Your backyard is part of nature.
Woman: I know that's your belief because you take care of them, but I really do not want them in my yard.
Me: ...

------------

My phone rings this morning and the number pops up as "Crazy Lady Who Wants to Interview Me." This was the woman who called me back in April and wanted to come out that weekend and inspect my facilities before she handed over the raccoon that she rescued. She never called back. I left 6 messages for her over the next two weeks, but none were returned.

Crazy Lady: Hi, I need to place a raccoon. Do you still do that?
Me: Yes.
Crazy Lady: I called you a couple of months ago because I had rescued a baby raccoon, and now that it's older, I'm ready to give it to you. Do you remember me?
Me: Yes, I do. You were supposed to call me to let me know when you wanted to come over one weekend. I called and left a lot of messages for you, but you never called back.
Crazy Lady: Yeah, my daughter didn't tell me you had left messages, but then she told me you did, but I wasn't ready to give the raccoon to you yet. She was still so young, but now she's older and I'm afraid she likes humans too much.
Me: Well, I've got plenty of raccoons, so I'm sure she'll wild up after a few weeks with the others.
Crazy Lady: She's been playing with my cat a lot, so I think maybe she thinks she's a cat?
Me: ...
Crazy Lady: I didn't want you to take her when she was really little because I was worried that you'd kill her. I heard through the grapevine that you kill raccoons...
Me: Are you sure that's me and not someone else?
Crazy Lady: Yes.
Me: Okay. *Note: I do not believe, nor care, what this crazy lady thinks of me. I just want the raccoon out of her hands.*
Crazy Lady: I just didn't want to give her to you if you were going to kill her.
Me: But you're going to give her to me now, then?! When we spoke the first time, I gave you my website address. Did you check out my website?
Crazy Lady: Yes, I did. But to be honest, anyone can slap up a website and pretend that they're a professional.
Me: ...
Crazy Lady: And I just don't trust anyone. I know this sounds crazy, but just because you have a website doesn't mean you don't kill them.
Me: Yes, it sounds crazy. That's because it's coming from you, and you are crazy. Okay.
Crazy Lady: So how do you want to do this? Want me to come out to you, or we can meet somewhere?
Me: Hell no I'm not telling you where I live. How about I come to your house? I'm picking up a baby fox in your area this afternoon, so it won't be much trouble for me to swing by after that.
Crazy Lady: Okay. *Gives me her address*
Me: Thanks. I'll call you when I'm headed in your direction! In case she decides not to give me the raccoon, now I've got her address to turn over to DNR!

Yesterday, my coworker gave me some deli ham that was expiring so I could give it to my animals. I have two red foxes now, a male and a female (the male came in last Sunday). I gave the ham to the male as a treat. At first, he eats some of it. Then he decides to save the rest for later and buries it. It's pretty neat!

The burying starts at 1:05


Foxes are so smart.

On Friday, I got a call about an abandoned red fox kit. When I picked her up, I was about 80% sure that she wasn't going to make it - she was severely dehydrated and emaciated, to the point where you could feel every bone in her body. Animals that show anything above 15% dehydration are most likely going to die.

But, I had to try. I couldn't give up on her, especially when she fought so hard to live after she lost her parents. Over the course of the next 48 hours, I've pumped 100 ccs of lactated ringers solution into her body, tube-fed her some raccoon milk (high protein, high fat) and kept her as warm and comfortable as possible. On Friday and Saturday, she was very limp and lethargic. But I kept giving her subq fluids and forced her to eat 5 ccs of milk every couple of hours (not a lot, because I didn't want to overload her system). This morning, I woke up at 6 a.m. to the sounds of the little fox crying. I went in the kitchen expecting to see her in pain or dying. To my delight, she was sitting up, fully alert, and crying because she was lonely. It was the best reason to wake up - an animal whom you thought had no chance is physically feeling better!

We're not out of the woods yet - she's still dehydrated and emaciated. Now she's lapping up milk on her own (about 40 ccs at each feeding!) and has gained about 50 grams, so there's hope. She has some issues with her back legs, but I'm not sure if that's due to her body shutting down from dehydration/emaciation, a neurological disorder, or because she's a baby and young animals aren't very coordinated. Time will tell.

I've been concentrating so much on keeping her alive that I haven't even thought about her long-term plans - I either need to give her to a rehabber who already has a fox, or I need to steal someone else's fox kit so she can have a friend. Thankfully, I've still got a little while before I have to do that - I have to make sure she's stable and healthy before then.

Here are some pictures and videos of her (you're welcome, Patti!).



( More pictures and videos behind the cut! )

A. Age: 27
B. Bed size: King
C. Chore you hate: Cleaning the bathroom.
D. Dogs: I would LOVE a dog. Dustin's not ready for the commitment, though.
E. Essential start to your day: Not talking to anyone for awhile.
F. Favorite color: Blue
G. Gold or silver: Silver
H. Height: 5'2"
I. Instruments you play: I played trumpet in middle and high school. I was in the marching band (I <3 marching band!). I can still play basic songs, but nothing too exciting.
J. Job title: Senior quality assurance analyst
K. Kids: Someday.
L. Live: Metro-Atlanta, Georgia
M. Mom’s name: Carol
N. Nicknames: Liz and Lizzie are the most common.
O. Overnight hospital stays: Quite a few - spent about a week in the hospital when my hand got an infection from a raccoon bite in 2003, then I've done another  two - three hospital stints when the infection spread to my arm. Then there was another hospital stay when they removed part of my armpit lymph node... then another hospital stay back in December when I had gastric bypass surgery.  lol
P. Pet peeve: Bad grammar.
Q. Quote from a movie: "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"!
R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: Two older brothers, Ben and Bradley.
T. Time you wake up: During the week, 6:30. On the weekends, usually around 8:30 or so.
U. Underwear: I like cotton.
V. Vegetables you dislike: Mushrooms.
W. What makes you run late: Dustin. He's always running late. Drives me crazy.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Dental and my hand. I think that's it. Surprisingly, I've never broken a bone.
Y. Yummy food you make: Does it count if it's take-out?
Z. Zoo: I love the zoo!

The Cheezeburger Network is interested in buying the rights to one of my raccoon videos for $200. The money would be used for rehabbing expenses (for example, I just bought $230 worth of formula for this baby season). Is there any reason I should *not* sell my video to them?

I've just sent an e-mail to Cheezburger asking the following questions:
1) Can the contract specify that the video description must state that these raccoons are wild animals that are being rehabilitated and are NOT pets?
2) Can the video description link to my wildlife rehab website?
3) Is the $200 negotiable - can I get $250 instead?

I'll post the answers once they get back to me. Anything else I should be worried about? Cheezeburger Network is pretty animal-friendly, so I'm not too worried they'll use the video for awful things.

It's been a month since I had gastric bypass surgery and things are going pretty well! I'm eating more "normal" foods, including steak, salads, and other non-soft-foods (Dustin is jealous, because at one-month out he couldn't eat any of the things I can!). I can't have extremely fatty or sugary foods, of course, but it's nice to be eating something other than mashed potatoes. :-) As long as I remember to eat slowly and chew thoroughly, then I don't have any problems. I still don't have any feeling of hunger or satiated, so it's hard to remember to eat 5 - 6 small meals a day. I'm up to about 4 meals a day, but even that's hard to accomplish sometimes.

Through this whole ordeal, I've been trying to be very conscious of my body and follow my body's cues. The bariatric program gives you guidelines on what you should be eating at each post-op stage, how much you should be eating, etc. While I'm not eating more than the full cup of food per meal, sometimes I eat only half a cup of food. I certainly haven't stuck to the soft-foods diet they recommend, either. It's been difficult, more psychologically than physically, to not be able to understand what my body is telling me. Is that pang in my side because I need to eat, or is it because I ate raw carrots three hours ago? Am I nauseous because I'm full or because I ate the wrong thing? All of those cues that I once knew are foreign to me. It's a bit stressful.

I've lost 34 pounds, which is right on track for what they want you to lose in the first month. It's funny - I thought I would be weighing myself every day, but I really don't think about it that often, only about twice a week. I'm not as concerned with the number on the scale as much as I am about being healthy. It's the right attitude, but it's a lot different than my weigh-himself-twice-a-day husband. :-) My clothes are looser, though I haven't dropped down a size yet (I probably can, but it's habit to just pull out the same clothes every day at 6:30 a.m.). I'm feeling better, too - although I still don't have my normal energy (or more!), I'm not as exhausted as I was a couple of weeks ago. Between having major surgery and my body adjusting to starving itself (I'm only taking in about 500 calories a day), I was getting pretty fatigued.

It was nice to ease back into work. Since we had so much snow last week, I had to work from home, which made it easier to transition back to work (I could take micronaps if needed, I didn't have to worry about the two-hour commute, etc). I'm SO glad to be back at work, though - after three weeks of a vacation and another week of being home-bound due to the snow, I was going stir crazy. I missed my coworkers! I missed being a productive member of society! I missed being BUSY!

I also missed my raccoons - even though I hardly interact with them now, it was hard for me not to check on them in the weeks after surgery. I didn't want to risk it, though - with five little (bullet-hole sized) incision sites on my stomach, the last thing I needed was to be mobbed by raccoons with sharp claws who want to play with me.

I've got my one-month post-op appointment with the surgeon scheduled for next week, at which point I'll (hopefully) be cleared to lift more than 10 pounds (I've been cheating occasionally) and resume normal activity and start exercising. I'm looking forward to it!

I'm 8 days post-surgery and I'm doing very well! I've had a couple of minor complications (allergic reactions to two medicines they gave me and a local infection in one of my incision sites), but thankfully, nothing major. All my plumbing is hooked up correctly! I even started eating more "normal" foods the other day - spaghetti sauce with ground turkey, a Lean Cuisine meal, and a flatbread pizza - with no ill effects!

The most difficult thing so far is trying to learn the cues my new stomach is putting out. I've gone so long knowing what "hungry" and "full" feel like, but now that's all been flipped upside-down. I haven't felt hungry yet at all, which makes it difficult to remember to eat, as weird as that sounds. I'm not able to decipher "full" yet, so I have to eat based off of measuring my food - my new stomach can handle a cup of food, so I'm relying on measuring out a cup of food in order to know how much to eat. It's pretty weird. Thankfully, I'm doing well at eating slowly and chewing my food very well - I've only had one time where I ate (scrambled eggs) too fast and I felt bad for about an hour afterwards.

I'm still sleeping an awful lot. Between the residual affects of the general anesthesia and the prescription antihistamine I'm on (for the allergic reactions), I get tired easily. It's a bit annoying because I want to be more productive, but I'm trying to give myself a break. :-)

That's pretty much it!

I'm having gastric bypass surgery tomorrow! Eep! I'm excited, for the most part. Nervous too, but mainly excited for this new journey. I think I've done all the preparing I can, so now it's up to the skillful surgeon and God!

I'll update when I can- Dustin will also be on hand to update for me, if I'm too sinker out to do it!

Love y'all!

Jackson Pearce, author of As You Wish and Sisters Red, is a good friend of mine. This year, she's taken part in Project for Awesome and featured Tails From The Hart, my wildlife rehab organization!



Not only does this bring awareness to wildlife rehabilitators and what we do, but hopefully some people will donate to TFTH, too. It's awesome to read all the comments from people on her YouTube video. Even cooler? John Green, another author, who started the Project For Awesome event four years ago with his brother, featured Jackson's video in HIS YouTube video! (It's the right top rectangle - click on it and it directs you to our video.) How cool is that?!

Written by another rehabber:

Love of a Rehabber - The Circle of Life, Reunited with Nature

You came to me young and afraid
It was then that I prayed
Help me with this tiny one
Help him grow up big and strong.
And you grew with every day,
Round and round and round you'd play;
Then stop and look as if to say,
"Oh, mama, aren't I sweet?
May I have a little treat?"

When the day comes that we part,
my heart will pause then seem to stop.
I know how it will be..
you will run, then climb a tree.
This is great and meant and to be...

So why does this tear me up inside
even though I am full of pride?

"If I could talk, here's what I'd say
Thank you for taking me in that day.
For feeding, cleaning and cuddling too..
When I was young and so brand new.
All to prepare for this one awesome day
So I could be free and do as I may."

So where do these tears come from?
This was a job that was well done.

"No need for you to cry too long,
for I am great big, healthy and strong.
Can climb a tree and swim a stream,
From day one this was my drean,
I am so very ready to roam,
please trust I'll find myself a nice home."

Oh, why does this make me ache inside
Now that our goal is satisfied?

"Its okay, your work is done,
now let me go to have my fun!
I'll be free, no need to fret,
Miss me some but don't forget....
When I was a babe you cared for me
Now I have grown to be wild and free!
Reunited with nature, its supposed to be
For the circle of life is now up to me."

He needed a rehabbers helping hand,
All grown up but still my little man
Forever and ever born to be free....
Reunited with nature as it was meant to be.
For the circle of life is what he will see.

Linda J. Sweeney
Wildlife Rehabber

It's that time of year again! If you would like a holiday card from me, please leave your address below. I know that some of y'all have moved this year, so please give me your address, even if you think I already have it!

Thanks!

Poll #1652101 Holiday card addresses
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 15

Name?

Address line 1?

Address line 2?

City?

State?

Zip Code?

Country?

Oh hey, guess who got interviewed for one of our local newspapers.

I did!

( Text for the linkphobic )

On October 24th, 2010, I released nine raccoons back into the wild. They had come to me for a variety of reasons - some were orphaned or abandoned by their mothers and one had been hit by a car. With the help of my husband, Dustin, and my aunt Michelle and uncle Glen, we successfully released these 9 raccoons!



*Song is "Do What You Do" by Noah and the Whale.

Some of y'all may have heard that a couple of weeks ago, a 9-month-old baby was mauled by two raccoons in her home here in Atlanta. Since the story broke, I've had a variety of emotions: sadness and horror, of course, and fear that people would jump to the wrong conclusions about raccoons based upon this one incident, and decide that all raccoons are rabid, vicious creatures. I also knew that there had to be more to the story than the news was reporting, because two healthy raccoons don't just go into someone's house and attack babies randomly.

Well, it came out yesterday that the father had been keeping the raccoons in the house as pets. Yep.

We're talking about it on a raccoon rehab e-mail group I'm part of. I've copied and pasted my response to the group below, in addition to my e-mail to the author of the AJC article.
( Click to read the e-mails. )

My brother Bradley and his wife Heather are expecting their first baby in June!

She's currently nine weeks along and they had their first ultrasound this week. Things look good so they've officially announced it. Hooray! I'm so excited for them - they're going to be fantastic parents!

Rubber Ducky, you're the one.
You make bath time lots of fun.
Rubber Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you.

My parents got a new mailbox and were kind enough to donate their old one for use in the raccoon habitat (it was Dad's idea). My husband drilled a couple of holes in the top of the mailbox so it can be cleaned and drained easily and mounted it upside-down from one of the beams in the ceiling of the habitat. The raccoons LOVE it! Surprisingly, it's a huge hit! Each time I go to check on the raccoons (which is about every other day now), there is always at least one raccoon curled up inside the mailbox. Sometimes, there are two cramped in there (I have no idea how this is comfortable).

Here's a video of one of the raccoons checking out their new toy:

At night, it looks like the raccoon is levitating in mid-air.

As part of the raccoons release criteria, they need to learn how to hunt for, catch, and eat fish. Each week, I purchase feeder fish so they can practice their skillz.

In the video, you'll see a couple of raccoons snip at each other. Chance, the newest raccoon to the group, was a little bit snippy with some of the other guys when they started to encroach on his territory. That's okay, though! One of the other things they need to learn how to do before they get released is stand up for themselves against competition for food. They never compete to the point of hurting one another (I would never allow that!), but the snipping is totally natural and prepares them for when they interact with other animals in the wild.

From qwantz.com.

Guess what I'll be buying this weekend? ;-)

Okay, I understand that a lot of people are upset by the fact that User A can directly connect her comments in User B's LJ to User A's own Facebook account, including linking to the post where the comments were made, even if it's a locked post.

What I'm not understanding is everyone's threats of "If you, flist, do any of this, you are dead to me."

1) While this enhancement implementation is new, the concept has been possible ever since copy/paste was available (ie, since before LJ existed). If I wanted to, I could copy and paste a comment that I made in a friend's LJ and put it as my Facebook status. I could even copy/paste the link to that entry, regardless of it's security-level, and put it on my Facebook. Does that make it right? Of course not. But if you think that this new feature somehow makes your content less protected, you're mistaken - it's already subject to copying and pasting at someone's will. And now that Facebook has the ability to do @Usernames which will show up on that @user's wall, it's even EASIER to connect the two social networking sites.

2) If you are really concerned that some people on your flist may do this, then you need to evaluate who's on your flist. Or at least evaluate what filters they're on. It's easy for people to connect LiveJournal Lizzie9208 to the Elizabeth Hartman on Facebook (after all, my AIM nickname listed on FB is Lizzie9208), so all of my public LJ entries are things I wouldn't mind my mom reading. Most of my flocked entries are things I wouldn't mind my mom reading, either, to be honest. I have other filters based upon who I want reading the content, which is also based upon how much I trust them. If someone abuses that trust, then they're immediately kicked off that filter. But they're also on those filters because I *know* they wouldn't post comments - their own or mine, or my posts - in other places, regardless of whether LJ has a fancy tool that does it or not.

So, y'all, calm down. I don't like this new feature and I hope LJ creates a way to disable it, but please do not think that just because those checkboxes are there means that your LJ is suddenly a lot less secure than it has been in the past. This is just a tool that skips a couple of the steps you would otherwise have to do on your own if you wanted to copy/paste a comment into FB.

No matter how long I've been rehabbing, I don't think I'll ever get used to some of the positions the raccoons sleep in. They contort their bodies around toys. They'll all pile on top of one another. They'll sleep sitting up inside the water bowls. They'll sleep in ways that look so unnatural and uncomfortable to me, I can't possibly imagine why they're doing it. Sometimes I think they're dead. There's been more than one occasion where I've run outside and poked them, or yelled at them just to make sure they're still alive. Because why else would you sleep like this?

Hanging upside down from the hammock.


( Click the cut for more pictures and a video! )

If you have an e-mail address, you've undoubtedly gotten spam from someone in Nigeria who asks for your bank account number so they can deposit a large sum of money into it because the heirs of the money have all died in some freak accident. I've always wondered what happens if you write back, so I tried it out one day.

And I was thisclose to scamming the scammer.

( E-mail coorespondences under here )

On Saturday, I released three adult raccoons that I had in the outdoor habitat. Dustin and I made the trek up to North Georgia and released them into a large forest where they will have plenty of places to play, eat, swim, and live in the wild. I'm so relieved I was able to release these guys - they had been kept as pets passed their sexual maturity, so they were tamed to human interaction. Over the course of the past few months, I've been hands-off with them and they've realized that I, nor any other human, is supposed to be their friend. They had reached all other goals in my release criteria, so they were ready to go! The release was a complete success!

This release also meant a big change for some of my raccoons at home - the juveniles got to move from the ferret cages on the porch to the BIG habitat outside! My outside habitat is 16' x 12' with an 8' tall ceiling, so it's big enough to house a lot of raccoons until they can be released. Even though I think the adult males would have gotten along with the juveniles, I didn't want such a wide age-gap between the raccoons, so I decided to wait until the males were released before putting the juveniles in the habitat. I did it just in time, too - things were getting a bit crowded in the ferret cage! Even though there was technically enough room for all the raccoons that were in there, they LOVE to pile on top of one another, which made them all look a bit squished.



After the outdoor habitat had been cleaned and sanitized, it was ready for the next batch of raccoons. I picked the oldest of my babies - 13 raccoons ranging from about 14 weeks to 8 weeks old - to put in the habitat. They are SO tiny in the big habitat, but I know they'll grow into it soon! This is the last "move" they'll make until their release. This is where they'll learn to fish, dig for grubs, and other important life skills before they get released into the wild.

Here are two videos of them exploring their new digs. :-)

I got an e-mail from YouTube this morning:
Your video Raccoons in the hammock! might be eligible for the YouTube Partnership Program, which allows you to make money from playbacks of your video.

Here's how it works: First sign into your YouTube account. Then, review and complete the steps outlined here. If your video is approved, we'll start placing ads next to the video and pay you a share of the revenue as long as you meet the program requirements.

We look forward to adding your video to the YouTube Partnership Program.

Thanks and good luck!

Confused on why that video had so many views, I logged in to YouTube and lo and behold, the video had over 13,200 views. Certainly, someone picked my video and inflated the view count via a program or something, right?

Nope. Apparently, I was featured on dailysquee.com on June 22. Dailysquee is part of the cheezburger network. How cool is that?!

Last Friday, I was really having a rough day. I had to turn away taking in a mother raccoon and her three babies due to the long commute to get them and the lack of space for them at my house. I felt so awful and I came home emotionally exhausted from work and rehabbing drama.

So when I checked the mail and found a package from papayarain, I started to cry because a care package of love was exactly what I needed right then. It was a delightful surprise, and the contents made me laugh and smile for the rest of the evening.



( Pictures of what's inside! )

Mo, thank you so so much for this wonderful box of love! It came at just the right time, when I was stressed out and in need of some support. You rock!

About a week and a half ago, I had 37 raccoons. And then I managed to get up to 43 raccoons. But I was too busy to take a video of that, so here's a video of 37 raccoons:

A week ago, I got a phone call from a homeowner, Sam, who had a mother raccoon and her baby kits living in his attic. When I talked to him, a trapper had come and caught the mother, but the babies were still stuck up in the attic. After being without their mom (and thus, without nourishment) for three days, I told him that we were on a race against the clock to get the babies out before they died of dehydration. If he could get the babies out of his attic, I would take them. If he could get the mother back from the trapper (who was keeping her until they figured out what to do), then I would take her, too.

On Thursday, he called me with fantastic news - he had gotten three raccoon kits out of his attic and the trapper had given him the mother. He and his wife, Sharon, were awesome enough to meet me at my office to give me the four raccoons - the babies in one box and the mother in the have-a-heart trap. I was so anxious on the drive home with these guys - I've never taken in a mother and her babies before, let alone reunited a mother with her kits, so I was unsure what to expect. Plus, the mother was SO upset that she could hear her babies in the box next to get, but couldn't get to them. When I got home, I prepared a temporary cage for her outside and then reunited her with the babies. She was upset to be in a cage, but very, very relieved to have her babies with her.

Over the next couple of days, I made sure she had food, water, a litter pan, and food for the babies in case her milk had dried up and she was no longer able to nurse them. I tried to keep my distance as much as possible so I didn't stress her out any more than she already was.

On Sunday, Sam called me up again because he heard more chirping in the attic and found baby #4. We met up and I took the baby home to momma raccoon. As soon as I put baby #4 in the cage with the mother, Sam called again because - you got it - he found baby #5. We met up again and I reunited the mother with this baby, too.

By that point, I could tell that the mother really wanted to get out of the cage. She was anxious about being in there, searching around for a way out. I didn't want to risk her freaking out so much that when she left, she wouldn't take her babies with her. I opened up the cage door for her and added a portable fence to the front of the cage so hopefully the babies wouldn't escape on their own. She scoped out our farm and came back a couple of hours later to collect her babies and take them to her new home.

Here's the video of her grabbing each baby and taking them to the tree hollow where they now live. It's not too far away from our house (I was taking this video outside my bedroom window), so I'm still able to keep an eye on her and feed her until she finds enough food on her own.

This is spelling bee week, but I've been up to my ears in raccoons so I haven't had an opportunity to look at the roster and make my picks. I'm still short on time, so I encourage you to check out scottique's LJ for analysis of the beginning rounds and her semifinal picks.

Since she's an awesome friend, she's also compiled my top 12 list going into the semifinals. You can check out all the semifinalists here.

My top 12 list, in order of Bee number, is:
16. Anvita Mishra She got out in round six when she misspelled "nyphrocytary" with an "ery." Bummer.
19. Sarah Gadre Dangit, Sarah got out in the fourth round with a misspelling of the word "phillumenist." She left out one of the "l"s. :-(
24. Laura Newcombe
36. Grace Remmer Out in the sixth round after adding an "e" on the end of "jehu." :-(
151. Hannah Evans Crap - she went out in round five with "lassi," which she mistakenly spelled as "lasse." SO BUMMED.
155. Neetu Chandak
188. Nicholas Rushlow Dangit, he went out in the fourth round on "devant," when he spelled it as "divant." :-(
202. Connor Aberle Dangit, he went out in round four with "goniometer."
205. Joanna Ye
207. Neel Mehta He got out in round four. :-(
213. Sukanya Roy Out in round five with misspelling of "hyleg."
272. Karen Laska Karen got out in round four. :-(

I'm picking Hannah Evans as my team captain - not only is she the little sister of Matthew Evans, who was my 2006 and 2007 picks, but she correctly spelled one of my favorite words, "phantasmagoric." She's an eighth grader, so this is her last chance at the winning.

Edit: Hannah went out in round five. Between Hannah AND Tim, I'm upset.



Christin's got Tim Ruiter on her 2010 top finishers list and as her team captain. Although he's not on my team, I really hope he goes far - he's been a delight to watch ever since last year! Edit: Tim got out in round four, with the word "fustanella." I am SO bummed!

Tonight, Christin's hosting a Spelling Bee party and I am stoked. It's hard for me to concentrate at work today with all this excitement in the air!

I drive an SUV.
I use plastic grocery bags.
I drive 60 miles daily to and from work.
I buy bottled soda drinks.
I shop at chain grocery stores instead of local farmers markets.
I buy things from online vendors.
I get leftovers from restaurants boxed in styrofoam containers.
I use a tractor.
I buy prepackaged meals and products wrapped in plastic.

I am the oil spill.

I am the ocean waters, muddy and opaque.
I am the marine life, struggling to survive.
I am the birds, unable to fly.
I am the fisheries, unable to make money.
I am the people who lost their lives in the explosion.
I am the beaches, covered in tar-balls and unfit for summer vacations.
I am the land animals, losing their food source and habitat.

I am the oil spill.

We aren't BP, Transocean or Halliburton, but we all contributed to this oil spill due to our consumption of products that use or contain oil. We are a country dependent upon oil. While we can blame those three companies for the direct cause of the oil spill, we have to point the fingers at ourselves, too.

What should we do about it? Personally, I am not in a position to go off the proverbial grid when it comes to oil usage. I like my SUV - ironically, I bought it *because* of my wildlife rehabbing. I like shopping online due to my hatred of shopping. I like getting to-go containers from restaurants and living on my family's farm, where I have a longer commute to work and have grass to mow. I am not in a position, either through necessity or desire, to stop using all products and services that use oil.

But I CAN start using oil-based products more wisely. I can't save the world single-handedly, but changing some of my habits will make a difference, however small. Recycle more. Bring reusable bags to the grocery store or reusable containers for to-go food. Compost. Combine errands. Carpool or work from home one day a week. Buy energy-star appliances. Support legislation that makes offshore oil drilling safer, or legislation that explores alternative fuel sources.

Friends, I challenge you to make differences in your own lives - instead of selling your cars and buying bikes (unless you really want to), try to find smaller ways to help our environment. These little changes add up. Let's take that guilt and turn it into something positive. Maybe if we all work together, we can move towards a nation that is less dependent on oil.

Some sobering pictures of the oil spill.

I haven't talked about the oil spill in here at all because it makes me extremely sad and angry at the same time. I am devastated by all the destruction this oil rig explosion has caused, to the ocean, the land, all the wildlife, the local fisheries, the economy, and the 11 souls that lost their lives on the rig. I'm angry that this rig had many violations *before* the explosion happened, there were many warning signs 12+ hours *before* the explosion, and yet they still continued to drill. I'm furious that our previous and current administration allowed this to happen, and has continued to issue permits to drill oil even after a halt in those permits was promised.

This photo shatters my soul and embodies all that I think about this oil spill:


Caption: A young heron sits dying amidst oil splattering underneath mangrove on an island impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Barataria Bay, along the the coast of Louisiana on Sunday, May 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

I didn't put it behind a cut because I think people need to see it. This is one of the very few times I openly post about something harming wildlife, because it hurts me so much.

Dear lady,
If you call me at 8 a.m. on a weekday (ie, while I'm at work) about a baby raccoon in your yard and then proceed to tell me that you live two hours away from where I work, you will not drive anywhere to meet up with me, and you are leaving at noon TODAY to go on vacation, don't be surprised when I tell you that I cannot help you. This is not my job - this is volunteer work, and I cannot leave my paying-job for four hours in order to meet up with you so you can get a pat on the back for saving a raccoon.

I told her to call the other raccoon rehabber in metro-Atlanta, but the other rehabber lives near where I work, and will ALSO not travel that far to get a raccoon, so I have no idea what this woman is going to do. Sadly, she'll probably just leave it in her yard to die.

I'm so sick of people expecting me to do all the pick-up for these guys when that's just the beginning of my investment into these animals. Even after I explain that I don't get paid for this and how much each raccoon costs me to raise and release (~$300), the majority of people are still only willing to drive 20 minutes out of their way in order to deliver the raccoons to me and expect to get a huge pat on the back for their "help." No.

No love,
Me

PS. Ha. I just finished writing this and our local Fox news station called me to see if they could come out and film video of my raccoons for a story they're doing on rabies vaccine bait drops in north Georgia. After hearing what the story was about and finding out it's NOT an anti-raccoon story, I said it'd be okay for them to film my raccoons. "Okay, we can be there in an hour, will that work for you?" HA! Um, no lady, I have to work.

When raccoons are born, they're pretty awkward animals. It's not until they're about a month old that they really start to walk, and even then it's pretty clumsy. In the interest of getting my oldest girl some practice walking, I've been letting her stumble walk around the house. At this age, she's not into exploring yet, so she tries to stay as close to me as possible. This makes for some pretty entertaining moments. :-)

I lost one of the new raccoons early this morning.

It was bound to happen. He and his sister had been found in the attic SIX DAYS after the mother was captured and released elsewhere. A third baby, Oscar, was found three days after the mother was evicted, and the (human) mother and her daughter managed to feed him kitten milk replacer and get him to a rehabber. After I met up to get Oscar, the woman called me about an hour later saying she had two more for me. I told her I'd meet her at the gas station in 35 minutes. She said she was going to try to give them a bit of water, then bring them to me.

Instead, she gave them cow's milk with a spoon. Giving the liquid with a spoon, an instrument that is WAY too big for the 4 inch long from nose-to-tail animal's mouth is a recipe for disaster. It'll almost always cause aspiration and once that liquid gets into the lungs of an already immuno-compromised animal, it's very hard to reverse the damage.

Believe it or not, cow's milk is one of the WORST things you can give an emaciated, dehydrated animal. Not only is it the wrong chemical makeup of protein, fat, and fiber for every animal except a cow, but it's also a really heavy, strong milk. WAY too strong for an animal that has gone without food for nearly a week. Dehydrated animals need to be pumped full of electrolytes first - dehydration is a much more dire problem than emaciation and if the animal is extremely dehydrated, the digestive system has already shut down. Giving the animal full-strength cow's milk is a terrible idea. For the first 24 hours after I get a dehydrated, emaciated animal, they don't get full-strength formula. I start out giving only electrolytes, then a very, very diluted form of the milk replacer, and then I slowly ramp up the ratio until the animal is getting full-strength formula. Giving an animal any kind of milk when it's on death's doorstep only hastens the death.

If the animal can be brought to a rehabber within a couple of hours of finding it, the best thing is to not feed the animal anything. Not only can their system not handle it, but the risk of aspiration is too great.

I don't know if this little guy would have made it even if she hadn't fed him cow's milk and made him aspirate. He was looking pretty rough already, but his chances would have been greater had she not tried to do the very thing that most people think they SHOULD do - feed the animal. I've started his sister on antibiotics and homeopathic treatment, hoping I can change her fate, but it's not looking good. :-(

Three hours later: I had to euthanize the sister. :-( She had moved into agonal breathing, so it was best just to end her suffering.

I now have EIGHT baby raccoons.



That's what eight baby raccoons look like when they're happy and awake. Pictures of them tomorrow (hopefully).

On Friday, I picked up five newborn raccoons from Cobb County Animal Control. The mother was trapped in someone's attic and released outside, leaving the babies behind. Thankfully, the homeowners brought them into animal control, and a rehabber who works there contacted me. The raccoons are currently about a week old and weigh 125 grams, measuring about 4 inches long. They're so tiny! They're in that so-ugly-they're-cute stage: their eyes and ears are fully closed, and they're pretty awkward creatures, as you'll see in the video below. I think these are the youngest raccoons I've rehabbed. Thankfully, they're all healthy and in great shape - I don't expect to have any problems with them. In a couple more weeks, they'll look more like raccoons and have fine motor skills down pat. Until then, they're just balls of awkwardness:
Four of them:


And a video of their awkwardness:


They look just as awkward as I felt in middle school.

I've got a bunch of things to write about, so I'm going to break them up a bit into several posts.

In non-raccoon wild animal news:
The squirrel that I got last week has moved on to another rehabber. I was pretty happy to hand him over to Stephanie last Thursday. While he was as cute as a button and fun to rehab for a couple of days, I couldn't keep rehabbing him because 1) I don't have the best cages for squirrels, and 2) I don't have any more friends for him to partner up with.

However, I *did* take a bunch of pictures of him before I passed him along:



( More squirrel pictures behind the cut! )

In other news, a bat at Great Smoky Mountains National Park tested positive for White Nose Syndrome (WNS). WNS is a fungus that forms on the faces of bats. It was discovered a couple of years up in the northeast, and has killed hundreds of thousands of bats up there. We've been hoping it wouldn't spread, but given the migratory patterns of some bats, it was inevitable. With this new discovery of an infected Tennessee bat, it's almost certainly going to hit Georgia in a couple of months, if it hasn't already. Biologists still haven't been able to figure out what causes the fungus. It's awful. I've been dreading it coming here because WNS has really put a dent in the bat population up north and it's really affected the ecosystem. I'm hoping the bat biologists who are working on WNS (and there are A BUNCH), figure it out quickly and find a way to eradicate the disease without eradicating the bats. :-/

Last Friday, I was looking forward to releasing my last four raccoons so I could have a couple weeks off before "baby season" begins. Ha! Instead, I got another juvenile on Sunday and tomorrow I will be picking up five (!!!!) newborn raccoons. For three days (Friday - Sunday), I will have three different age groups of raccoons with wildly different needs.

After the release on Sunday, I will be working like mad to get the floor ripped out of the habitat, get the rhino lining guy out here for an estimate, and hopefully get that installed asap so I can move the newest juvenile into his new home.

Oh, and on Saturday evening, we're hosting a barn concert. Which means all the organizing/cleaning projects I've been putting off for months have been full-swing-ahead, as 100 people are going to be milling around the barn and our house all evening.

Baaaaaaby squirrel.


More pics tomorrow.

On this week's episode of Weird Shit Found on the Farm, I give you this:


A plastic dog with a lazy eye and an open wound, a toy gun that lights up and makes sounds, and a glass bong pipe.

The pipe was found in the middle of one of our fields, underneath a 2 x 4 piece of wood, apparently where the neighborhood kids decided to hide it. I told her we should leave the 2 x 4, but put a note under it saying "To retrieve your pipe, please call..." and then give the phone number of the local police station. ;-)

Giving animals a second chance at life.