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Aug. 14th, 2007 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuOh man, I can't believe how wanky ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
pokemon has been lately. I normally like wank, but it's not really funny enough to be entertaining, so...bah. I hope it goes away soon.
Okay, I promised a report on my housesitting adventures, and I might as well write one now. I need to be up early tomorrow, though, so this is probably going to be a little on the short side.
For the record, I was caring for:
1 Irish Wolfhound named Fiona
1 Rat Terrier named Rowdy
2 elderly cats--Emily and Duncan
2 Shire horses (the largest breed of horse in the world)--Mikey and Louise
1 Quarter horse named Dunny
14 black-tailed deer fawns
An uncountable number of wildlife, including hummingbirds, various songbirds, wild black-tailed deer, wild turkeys, jackrabbits, and other critters. There's no natural source of water around their house, so they put out water for all these animals and food for some of them, too.
I got a ride out McCourtney road with mom on Thursday, after much rushing around, packing, finding places for the birds, and so on and so forth. When I got there, Kathy and her husband Greg were exhausted and frazzled from putting up coyote guards on the fawn pasture. Nonetheless, they walked me through most of the chores while I asked kind of dumb questions and followed them around. I'll spare you the details there because I have plenty to say about said chores later.
After chores were done, we determined one fawn with a head injury needed to go to Lillis, an experienced but mostly retired deer rehabber. I wasn't comfortable dealing with him in the case that his condition worsened, as I don't know a great deal about caring for fawns at this point. It was quite an experience getting him in the dog crate, as he was hidden behind a shelter and was reluctant to come out from his hiding spot. Greg ended up having to crawl in the little space and push him out so Kathy could pick him up and put him in the crate. Once we accomplished this, we loaded him in Kathy's truck and went out to deliver him to Lillis.
The ride was a little traumatic because the poor little fawn refused to lie down and kept falling all over the crate. It was a rather long and bouncy ride, though, and he eventually settled down. In fact, he settled down and became so silent that we believed he had died during the ride and we had to stop to check on him. He was fine, though, and Lillis happily accepted him.
On the way back, we grabbed some food at Taco Bell because it was the only food place available. I got a quesadilla and munched on it on the way back to Kathy's house. In her driveway, we spotted two raccoons on the side of the road, and got quite a good look at them. Not too long after arriving back her house, we went to bed. I slept on the pull-out bed in the living room. By the way, their house is uber-small but really cute. It basically consists of a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. If you stand in the doorway to the bedroom and spin around, you can easily see the whole house. It's cozy and well-decorated, though--I felt very comfortable there.
I didn't sleep well at all the first night--my stomach was messed-up (possibly from the quesadilla) and therefore I didn't sleep much at all. We were all up at 5:30 AM to mix the deer milk and feed the fawns, and after all the morning chores were done, I bid Kathy and Greg farewell.
I'm not going to go in-depth about all my experiences there, so let's settle for my schedule (as it was pretty much the same all of the days) and a couple stories/observations. I need to be getting to bed soon anyway.
So, here's what I did while I was there:
Morning Chores
5:30 AM -- Wake up, brush teeth and hair, say good morning to the dogs and cats
5:40 AM -- Make sure the cats and dogs have food and clean water. Clean cat litter.
5:45 AM -- Begin mixing approximately 1~2 gallons of deer milk formula in warm water. Pour it in eighteen bottles, put the nipples on the bottles, put them in a basket.
6:00 AM -- Walk approximately half a mile down to the fawn enclosure with said gallon or two of fawn formula (heavy!). Go into feeding enclosure in the pasture, watch the fawns go ballistic, place the bottles in the bottle holders and secure them, let the fawns in the feeding pen, and watch the ensuing chaos.
6:25 AM -- Collect mostly empty bottles, consolidate remaining milk into a couple of bottles for reuse. Shoo little fawns out of the feeding enclosure back into the pasture. This is quite a task, as they would rather be licking my legs and socializing with me. XD
6:30 AM -- Go to the barn and give the horses their hay. Clean the stalls, switch gates (Dunny would get three acres of pasture during the evening, and Louise and Mikey got it during the day), put on their fly masks.
7:00 AM -- Hike back up to the house. Put empty fawn bottles in the sink, and go get food for the wildlife. Distribute food through about an acre or so of land.
7:30 AM -- Take a break and eat some breakfast while watching the wild deer eating the food I put out for them. Wait for them to leave so I can do other chores. Clean fawn bottles (takes a good half-hour or forty-five minutes by itself! Very messy) and buckets used to mix the food.
9 AM or so -- Go out and lug the hose around the property filling the water for the wild animals. The hose gets stuck on everything, so this is probably the most frustrating task.
9:30 AM or so -- Grab a wagon, fill up buckets on it with bird seed, and go around filling the thirty or so bird feeders on the property.
10:00 AM -- Take a break! Watch Law & Order, sleep, eat, entertain the dogs, do whatever.
Afternoon Chores:
12:00 PM -- Walk the dogs down to the barn to give the horses their afternoon treats. Make sure the dogs get plenty of exercise and don't get themselves in trouble with rattlesnakes or anything else.
1:00 PM -- Water the many plants in the garden.
1:45 PM -- Go back to lounging around.
Evening Chores
5:25 PM -- Give the cats their evening meal of cat food, tuna, and water mixed together.
5:30 PM -- Get deer bottles ready. Do basically what I do for the deer feeding in the morning.
6:45 PM -- Feed the horses more hay. Switch gates again. Take fly masks off. Clean out their water and refill it.
7:10 PM -- Get back to the house, clean out deer bottles again.
8:00 PM -- Fill up hummingbird feeders. Man, those little guys eat a lot in one day! They'd literally go through about two or three gallons (!) of hummingbird food a day. This takes about an hour.
9:00 PM -- Sit around for an hour or so, and go to bed.
Needless to say, I was very busy. It was exhausting, but fulfilling and nice at the same time. The fawns are so cute and sweet, and all the animals are so well-behaved and easygoing that I never had any problems with them. Dunny somehow managed to escape from his stall and dig through some recycling in the barn once, but he went back into the stall with little coaxing, so it wasn't a big deal at all.
There was so much wildlife around--I loved it. There were swarms of hummingbirds from dawn to sunset, and every time I stepped outside there would be a constant buzz of their wings. So cute! And they'll get extremely close to you if you stay still. There were a lot of beautiful kinds--Anna's, Rufous, Calliope, and Black-chinned. :) There were also constantly wild turkeys parading around the yard. I love them so much--they remind me of miniature dinosaurs, and it was fun peeping at the mother turkey. She would peep back at me. There were usually wild deer around (including two mothers and fawns, and several bucks), and in the evening groups of jackrabbits would come for water.
At one point, I went outside at night because I realized I had left the garage door open. When I turned the light on the garage, there was the cutest little skunk wandering dimly around the garage. It didn't even mind that I turned on the lights and was watching it waddle about--it slowly but surely meandered out of the garage so I could close it.
Ugh, it's getting really late. Anyway, I might update this later if I think of anything I want to add. I guess that's all for now?
pokemon has been lately. I normally like wank, but it's not really funny enough to be entertaining, so...bah. I hope it goes away soon.Okay, I promised a report on my housesitting adventures, and I might as well write one now. I need to be up early tomorrow, though, so this is probably going to be a little on the short side.
For the record, I was caring for:
1 Irish Wolfhound named Fiona
1 Rat Terrier named Rowdy
2 elderly cats--Emily and Duncan
2 Shire horses (the largest breed of horse in the world)--Mikey and Louise
1 Quarter horse named Dunny
14 black-tailed deer fawns
An uncountable number of wildlife, including hummingbirds, various songbirds, wild black-tailed deer, wild turkeys, jackrabbits, and other critters. There's no natural source of water around their house, so they put out water for all these animals and food for some of them, too.
I got a ride out McCourtney road with mom on Thursday, after much rushing around, packing, finding places for the birds, and so on and so forth. When I got there, Kathy and her husband Greg were exhausted and frazzled from putting up coyote guards on the fawn pasture. Nonetheless, they walked me through most of the chores while I asked kind of dumb questions and followed them around. I'll spare you the details there because I have plenty to say about said chores later.
After chores were done, we determined one fawn with a head injury needed to go to Lillis, an experienced but mostly retired deer rehabber. I wasn't comfortable dealing with him in the case that his condition worsened, as I don't know a great deal about caring for fawns at this point. It was quite an experience getting him in the dog crate, as he was hidden behind a shelter and was reluctant to come out from his hiding spot. Greg ended up having to crawl in the little space and push him out so Kathy could pick him up and put him in the crate. Once we accomplished this, we loaded him in Kathy's truck and went out to deliver him to Lillis.
The ride was a little traumatic because the poor little fawn refused to lie down and kept falling all over the crate. It was a rather long and bouncy ride, though, and he eventually settled down. In fact, he settled down and became so silent that we believed he had died during the ride and we had to stop to check on him. He was fine, though, and Lillis happily accepted him.
On the way back, we grabbed some food at Taco Bell because it was the only food place available. I got a quesadilla and munched on it on the way back to Kathy's house. In her driveway, we spotted two raccoons on the side of the road, and got quite a good look at them. Not too long after arriving back her house, we went to bed. I slept on the pull-out bed in the living room. By the way, their house is uber-small but really cute. It basically consists of a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. If you stand in the doorway to the bedroom and spin around, you can easily see the whole house. It's cozy and well-decorated, though--I felt very comfortable there.
I didn't sleep well at all the first night--my stomach was messed-up (possibly from the quesadilla) and therefore I didn't sleep much at all. We were all up at 5:30 AM to mix the deer milk and feed the fawns, and after all the morning chores were done, I bid Kathy and Greg farewell.
I'm not going to go in-depth about all my experiences there, so let's settle for my schedule (as it was pretty much the same all of the days) and a couple stories/observations. I need to be getting to bed soon anyway.
So, here's what I did while I was there:
Morning Chores
5:30 AM -- Wake up, brush teeth and hair, say good morning to the dogs and cats
5:40 AM -- Make sure the cats and dogs have food and clean water. Clean cat litter.
5:45 AM -- Begin mixing approximately 1~2 gallons of deer milk formula in warm water. Pour it in eighteen bottles, put the nipples on the bottles, put them in a basket.
6:00 AM -- Walk approximately half a mile down to the fawn enclosure with said gallon or two of fawn formula (heavy!). Go into feeding enclosure in the pasture, watch the fawns go ballistic, place the bottles in the bottle holders and secure them, let the fawns in the feeding pen, and watch the ensuing chaos.
6:25 AM -- Collect mostly empty bottles, consolidate remaining milk into a couple of bottles for reuse. Shoo little fawns out of the feeding enclosure back into the pasture. This is quite a task, as they would rather be licking my legs and socializing with me. XD
6:30 AM -- Go to the barn and give the horses their hay. Clean the stalls, switch gates (Dunny would get three acres of pasture during the evening, and Louise and Mikey got it during the day), put on their fly masks.
7:00 AM -- Hike back up to the house. Put empty fawn bottles in the sink, and go get food for the wildlife. Distribute food through about an acre or so of land.
7:30 AM -- Take a break and eat some breakfast while watching the wild deer eating the food I put out for them. Wait for them to leave so I can do other chores. Clean fawn bottles (takes a good half-hour or forty-five minutes by itself! Very messy) and buckets used to mix the food.
9 AM or so -- Go out and lug the hose around the property filling the water for the wild animals. The hose gets stuck on everything, so this is probably the most frustrating task.
9:30 AM or so -- Grab a wagon, fill up buckets on it with bird seed, and go around filling the thirty or so bird feeders on the property.
10:00 AM -- Take a break! Watch Law & Order, sleep, eat, entertain the dogs, do whatever.
Afternoon Chores:
12:00 PM -- Walk the dogs down to the barn to give the horses their afternoon treats. Make sure the dogs get plenty of exercise and don't get themselves in trouble with rattlesnakes or anything else.
1:00 PM -- Water the many plants in the garden.
1:45 PM -- Go back to lounging around.
Evening Chores
5:25 PM -- Give the cats their evening meal of cat food, tuna, and water mixed together.
5:30 PM -- Get deer bottles ready. Do basically what I do for the deer feeding in the morning.
6:45 PM -- Feed the horses more hay. Switch gates again. Take fly masks off. Clean out their water and refill it.
7:10 PM -- Get back to the house, clean out deer bottles again.
8:00 PM -- Fill up hummingbird feeders. Man, those little guys eat a lot in one day! They'd literally go through about two or three gallons (!) of hummingbird food a day. This takes about an hour.
9:00 PM -- Sit around for an hour or so, and go to bed.
Needless to say, I was very busy. It was exhausting, but fulfilling and nice at the same time. The fawns are so cute and sweet, and all the animals are so well-behaved and easygoing that I never had any problems with them. Dunny somehow managed to escape from his stall and dig through some recycling in the barn once, but he went back into the stall with little coaxing, so it wasn't a big deal at all.
There was so much wildlife around--I loved it. There were swarms of hummingbirds from dawn to sunset, and every time I stepped outside there would be a constant buzz of their wings. So cute! And they'll get extremely close to you if you stay still. There were a lot of beautiful kinds--Anna's, Rufous, Calliope, and Black-chinned. :) There were also constantly wild turkeys parading around the yard. I love them so much--they remind me of miniature dinosaurs, and it was fun peeping at the mother turkey. She would peep back at me. There were usually wild deer around (including two mothers and fawns, and several bucks), and in the evening groups of jackrabbits would come for water.
At one point, I went outside at night because I realized I had left the garage door open. When I turned the light on the garage, there was the cutest little skunk wandering dimly around the garage. It didn't even mind that I turned on the lights and was watching it waddle about--it slowly but surely meandered out of the garage so I could close it.
Ugh, it's getting really late. Anyway, I might update this later if I think of anything I want to add. I guess that's all for now?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 05:51 pm (UTC)Are you in need of a Shaymin by any chance? >.> I have two, so I'll give you one for the Darkrai clone and the shiny Swellow whenever you catch it, if you're in need of one.
Also, don't feel bad over the whole
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 06:20 pm (UTC)ILL GET ON
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 06:21 pm (UTC)I don't have wifi 'til later tonight. D: I'll drop you a comment when I can get on. Thank you so much, though.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 06:24 pm (UTC)lawl
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 06:33 pm (UTC)Hahaha, I just didn't want you hanging around on wifi in confusion.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 08:19 pm (UTC)BIDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF ♥
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 12:03 pm (UTC)Anyway, wow, sounds like you were staying at a really cool place. Talking about the hummingbirds--at my cottage when I was little, a hummingbird smacked into one of the glass doors and got stunned (luckily not killed). My parents carefully put it him a cloth-lined shoebox and (I don't know how effective this would've been) they cut a slice into a big fat cherry for him to drink out of if he want. And he recovered by the next day and flew away :D it was awesome.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 06:40 pm (UTC)A lot of stunned birds recover pretty quickly, thankfully! I had a similar hummingbird-crashing-into-window story from when I was in kindergarten. If a bird doesn't recover by the morning/within a few hours during the day, though, it can indicate a bad injury. Spine and head trauma injuries definitely need some help.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-18 02:03 am (UTC)