Mysterious Ways

So, originally I decided I wasn't going to do Tuesdays on here by themselves, but this Tuesday was so much fun I thought I would go ahead and post it, all be it two days late (physio and ochem raped me this week)

When I showed up in the morning, no one was in the keeper's quarters, so I just signed in and went straight to the kitchen, where there was tons of action and lots of stuff going on, but nothing for me to do.  So we went back to the other room for the meeting, where I learned the baby zebra almost died over the weekend :( but he was starting to pull through Tuesday so hopefully there is still a baby there when I show up Saturday morning.

So once morning rush was over, I got to help do monthly inventory instead of make diets.  It was interesting to see how little of each different food the zoo uses, and it was freezing cold having to stand in the freezer for like ten minutes counting mice and rats and all kinds of weird stuff.

When we finished inventory we did worms and crickets, which is always exciting.  But after that, we got to go work giraffe feed.  Climbed over the fence into the zoo and stood there in the giraffe feeding area, fed some giraffes, and gave biscuits to little kids that threw their's so they could actually feed the giraffe two biscuits.  About halfway through feeding time, the male zebra started following close behind one of the females, and then we realized what was happening.  Let's just say he was up and at em.  He never actually jumped up to mount her (which I think would have been awesome to see), but he did do enough to disgust me, and I'll just leave it at that haha.

On our way back, Cassie, the keeper that I see the most that I don't actually work with, needed help moving the giant ball that I saw in the elephant yard on Saturday across the zoo from tiger to lion.  So we rode over to tiger with her, picked up the ball, and drove over to lion.  I didn't see lions, but that's ok.  Then she drove us back to the kitchen, where I helped do capybara and tapir diets before I had to leave.  Overall, much better than normal, especially because I got to feed some giraffes :)

It's alright, it's alright, alright. She moves, in mysterious ways

Her Diamonds

Alrighty, another Tuesday done, another couple things learned.  Tuesday's still not too interesting, but whatever, it's still the zoo.

Started off with a keeper meeting where they talked about when and where certain trees are getting cut down over the next week.  Sounds like quite the project.  Then me and Stacey sat there while we waited for everything in the kitchen to settle down.

After a few minutes we went to the kitchen and I started on the tortoise diets while she was ordering stuff and on the phone and all kinds of weird stuff.  When I finished up the tortoise diets I put sunflower seeds and peanuts into little bags, I don't know why, and then filled up the containers of food.

Then we took the delivery of worms and crickets out of the boxes and put them in their places.  Playing with worms is interesting to say the least.  Then she had me help her a little bit with putting the bear diets together, and then I made the bucket of elephant treats for the training, which I saw Saturday so that was kind of neat to make the stuff that I saw being used earlier this week.  Once we finished that up we went to the city storage area which is right across the street behind the right field wall of Hi Corbett.  There's a store and maintenance yard and all kinds of weird stuff that she showed me, and it's all behind right field which is even weirder.  And that was the end of the day.  Exciting, right?  At least Saturdays are awesome....

And I don't know what I'm supposed to do so I sit down and cry too. But don't let her see

First Kitchen Day

Today was my second day at the zoo, the first one with my other keeper, Stacey.  She only works in the kitchen so that's where I stayed all day.

The day started off with her telling me to just stay out of the way and watch til all the keepers had their food and were out of the way, so that's exactly what I did, while eating a cookie that one of the docents brought.  When that was over, she finally acknowledged my existence and showed me around the kitchen and the warehouse area.  Then she gave me a fatty binder with the diet of every animal in the zoo listed inside of it.  She told me to read all of it, so I did.  It took about 45 minutes along with some other distractions including talking to the community service lady who also works in the kitchen.

After I was done reading, Stacey told me to make all of the tortoise diets, so I did.  A lot of salad and fruits and vegetables, and now I know the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber (I think). Seriously, they look way too alike to be completely different things.  After I was done making the different diets and putting them in the right refrigerators, the weekly delivery of mealworms came in, so I had to help put them in containers for the rest of the week.

When the worms were put away we cleaned up the kitchen and that was pretty much it for the day.  Vet visits are on Tuesdays and Fridays, so hopefully I'll get to be around those more often than standing in the kitchen and making tortoise diets...but it's easy work and for credit. And it's still working at a zoo, so it's not bad, just not as exciting as petting rhinos and getting chased by giant meat eating birds.

I can't walk and I can't talk anymore since you, walked out the door