Hank the sloth bear among other animals

Hank and Hana first week out in the yard

having the time of his life

exploring everything

yay the pool

otters and bubbles

harbor seal resting

squeegee posing

Fishing cat kitten and mom lurking in the background.
 Photo compliments of the National Zoo facebook page 

Hank exploring his ledge

Life Right Now

I feel like my life is in limbo.  Its been an interesting week to say the least, yesterday I put in my 2 week notice at Petsmart and earlier this week i found out I did not get the job at the aquarium.  So therefore I have been applying to a bunch of jobs including being a biological aide, biological technician, and park ranger all for the government, a contract and temporary naturalist, a butterfly exhibit assistant manager, and several summer camp instructor positions.  If nothing contacts me by the time Im done at Petsmart I will apply for the humane society as a petcare person or manager.  

Wednesday was spent instead of going to the zoo I went to several nature centers and asked about jobs....volunteering is all they have for now especially if they are connected to the government due to the financial sequestration.  Positive note is that the Audubon Naturalist Society emailed me back about the contract naturalist position and is keeping my resume for the fall, but she did pass my resume on to the director for summer camps.  

Other than that Thursday was pretty interesting because the weather had been predicted to storm pretty bad twice once in the morning and once during the evening commute.  Well I still went to the zoo and was working on fish food prep when the sky became black we thought the worst was there in the morning but luckily it just rained a little.  The worst of it came when I was driving home, you could see the wall of rain coming and then all of the sudden it was a torrential downpour with a lot of wind.  I could barely see the lines on the road and we were all going around 10 mph due to all of the rain and water on the road.  Luckily it only lasted 5 minutes but it was crazy.  I even heard the storm created a tornado but I wasnt near it at the time.  Last year's derecho was much....MUCH worse, but it still wasnt fun to be in the thick of it in my car.  The weathermen say this happens maybe once a year or every other year.

Meanwhile I have been busy these past 2 weeks I have been busy animal sitting, first for one of my coworkers and her hamster and this weekend for one of my neighbors and their dog.

Ok so.................adorable dog pictures are in order I believe:

during bath

hate me why you????? ~yoda

all fluffy and clean!

So I have officially become corgi obsessed i follow corgi blog pages and have joined this social site called packlove.com where you make a page for your own dog and they are grouped by breed.  To become a part of the site you need to have someone invite you though.  I love looking at other peoples' dogs even if they arent corgis.  I even was able to find Tesla's brother who lives in california named Story.  He's pretty adorable and looks very similar but without the 2 face affect.  Meanwhile look at a few pics from the dogs i follow and you can check out their websites:

http://corgnelius.tumblr.com/

http://www.chroniclesofcardigan.com/

http://simonsaysbark.tumblr.com/

http://wafflesthecorgi.com/

http://thingsonhazelshead.tumblr.com/

http://pudge.corgiaddict.com/

Random pictures lately

Got my haircut for the interview this week....just an inch or so off the length.  Makes the bangs look closer to being grown out.  Had a lovely day off for the week yesterday....watched a lot of tv, mostly castle.  

Today was asia trail where I helped out down at cats/otters.  We first put out otter food and then went down to look at the red pandas.  Recently the zoo acquired a new red panda named rusty.  He is almost a year old and Shama is 5 or 6.  We then went to help out at a blood draw procedure for the female panda and a mock ultrasound, and by we I mean the 2 keepers while i stood on the side and handed them honey water, but i still liked seeing it.  After the ultrasound was finished by the pandas' choice she got really excited about the jelly and rubbed it all over herself.  It was really funny.  We then fed the red pandas and cleaned the yard, while trying to avoid a pushy guest.  I then helped set up the yard for otters, let them out and cleaned the stalls inside.  After I finished the keeper wanted to have me help her set up a few logs in the clouded leopard yard and dig a hole to put a post for support.  

We then set up clouded leopard stalls after letting out one of the leopards and waited for the curator to come because of the new fishing cat kitten from a few weeks ago.  He wanted to check in on the routine for the mama cat and get a good look at the kitten.  After that we went down to help at pandas again picking up some bamboo before standing outside the red panda yard with the other keepers keeping a watchful eye on the newbie and Shama.  Around 11:30 we went back up to sloth bears and did the demonstration before lunch and the meeting.  After the meeting we prepared the enrichment for sloth bears and put them in the stalls, then one keeper had us go down to otters to come up with more ideas for the otter wood structure for the yard.  A large group of volunteers is coming in on friday to help grab wood and help build the basic structure.  Then we will be putting fun stuff on the structure as enrichment.  By that time it was time to go home, so overall a good day.

Corgi's got back!

Chip the hamster - hammy sitting

Pre-haircut do 

Tai the Clouded leopard

Shama the Red Panda

Khali the Sloth Bear acting silly 

Otters! 

Eyed Elater - random beetle we found at the zoo can pop up 4 feet in the air

Elektra and her kitten (credit: Tallie Wiles, Smithsonian's National Zoo)

Job prospects!

So last week was super busy.  I am down to 1 off day a week so my life is pretty tiring.  Wednesday was my day at asia trail, where I quickly set up enrichment and checked the yard for the morning and helped clean the stall for hana and hank the cub.  We had a behind the scenes tour at 8:30am for them so we were quite in a rush.  This is them from the national zoo facebook page.

Hana and Hank (cub) (credit: Connor Mallon, Smithsonian's National Zoo)

Then I finished cleaning the stalls for the other bears, weighed diets for the next day, and prepped the pm diets.  After that I helped one of the keepers put frosted spray paint on the building windows in designs so that birds could see them and not fly into the windows.  Then we had a meeting and lunch.  I put the enrichment into the stalls and then went home.

Thursday I started my first full day at american trails and started doing my days as the only volunteer now.  So it was quite busy the whole time.  I received, sorted and prepped food for the seals and sea lions.  I then watched the sea lion show and a behind the scenes tour right afterwards.  

5 of the 6 seals: gunther, kara, kjya are gray seals and luke and squeegee are harbor seals

2 of the sea lions: Calli and Sophie (Credit: Mark Van Bergh, Smithsonian's National Zoo)

After lunch I prepared the beaver diets and went to help feed the 3 beavers Chip, Willow, and Buzz.  They eat a basic rodent chow much like the pet block Petsmart uses for their animals, but they also get fresh produce like sweet potato, corn, and broccoli.  

Then I went to prepare the diets for the next day for all other animals in the valley.  I then went and prepared the am buckets for the next day for the seals and sea lions and cleaned buckets after the keepers fed the seals and sea lions. At 4pm I left for the day....it then took me an hour and a half to get home, which included a wreck and a boat sitting in the middle of the road.  The 2 were not connected.  

So all week I have been waiting to hear from a nature center about a job that says I have been referred to the hiring manager...hadnt heard anything yet and then today I hear back from the aquarium close to me about an interview friday so yay!  

Meanwhile I have started hamster sitting for one of my coworkers and today was the first day I put him in his roll ball...so of course I videoed it.  Unfortunately it wont let me post the video but here is a picture of it and a picture of my coworkers hamster chip.

wheres my treats???

ooh can I play with this?

This is a video of my dog going down the stairs....she is absolutely adorable!