Day Twelve

As some days can sound kind of monotonous on paper - get up, arrive, pre-rounds prep, feeding, food prep, lunch, afternoon activities, rinse and repeat - I've decided that it would be a neat idea to focus on some unique topics for the next few days.

Today: What does Gina think about? And other adventures.

Thoughts
First, I love daydreaming and having conversations with myself. (Everybody does it, right?) I'll talk to myself if I'm not too sure about something, and people have seen me arguing with myself.

For the sake of entertainment, here are some of my thoughts.

While prepping food for the fruit-eaters: Hmm, Harvey Dent would be an awesome name for a binturong. 

While feeding the singers: I wonder how my dog would react if he met them. Or Spaulding.

When cleaning up after the lemurs: Why, when they poop, do they specifically aim for the hole in the stump? (for those not in the know, the lemurs' enclosure has an indoor den. There is a hollow stump that is quite heavy to move. The lemurs, for whatever reason, seem to enjoy pooping down the hole of the stump)

Other Adventures

Kira isn't in the mood.
While Kira Lion and Arthur Tiger get along famously, they have occasional disagreements. Since Arthur is rather young, he loves to play. As illustrated in Kira's story, she has a defect in her hip and poor vision. Sometimes she just doesn't want to play and prefers to lay on top of her den, surveying the world. Arthur, on the other hand, is constantly either eating or playing. While carrying a chicken for Tonka Tiger through the narrow walkway, Arthur has bounded next to me begging for the chicken.

On several occasions, when it was a hot morning and Kira clearly didn't feel like doing anything, she and Arthur were moved to their shift space together so that their main enclosure could be cleaned. After their meals had been placed and the habitat deemed safe for the felines to be released, the shift door to the enclosure was opened. Kira, who was laying in front of the door, refused to move. Arthur paced one end of the shift and every few seconds would attempt to approach the door. Every time he did so, Kira would flatten her ears to her head and bare her teeth. Any urging from the keepers to get her to move were in vain - she was going to stay right where she was.

(In fact, the other day I got Kira to get up and move by enticing her with a chicken. It's not very often that this happens though)

Jeremiah is a dude.
The Center is home to two ridiculously adorable lemurs, Jeremiah and Cookie. I always enjoy watching them, even though lemurs wouldn't be on my Top Ten list of favorite animals. Whenever I'm in the small compound and have finished everything, or am waiting on a keeper, I usually watch the lemurs. They would either be climbing the walls of their enclosure or sitting in their indoor den and eating. With a little research, I've learned that lemurs are incredibly intelligent.

But intelligent or not, Jeremiah is such a dude. I was with a couple of interns, waiting for a keeper. Shannon and Keela had left us by the lemurs, and we were waiting for them to get back to receive further instruction. I saw that the lemurs were inside, and walked up to get a closer look. Cookie was chilling on a branch, and Jeremiah was sitting on the windowsill. When he saw us approach, he immediately turned around, got into a handstand, and firmly pressed his rear end against the window. We were in stitches as his rear end slowly slid down the window. I have no idea what that was supposed to imply - whether he was being territorial or wanted to show us his male tonsils - but whatever it was, it didn't have the intended effect.

Good character building.
On the same day that Jeremiah decided to grace us with a lovely view of his manhood, we were responsible for cleaning Abigail and Aleco Kinkajou's indoor den. On a typical day we would enter, clean up, take out the old food, check the water (and change if necessary), and make sure the animals were okay. However, occasionally keepers or interns are expected to deep clean the habitat.

For the kinkajous, the keepers moved them outside (they were, in a word, disgruntled). We had to enter, sweep up all the shavings, and then spend hours scrubbing the poop off the walls. It wasn't like the poop was caked on, but in some areas it was pretty bad - the hammock straps had to be replaced, and one intern spent a good hour or so cleaning the shelves/stairs leading to the kinkajous' sleeping area. I have no idea what the kinkajous were doing at night - probably throwing a wild party and inviting the binturongs from next door - but there was poop on the ceiling!

However, it was messy and rewarding. It was great seeing the white walls and gleaming tile floors. It was nice knowing that today, the kinkajous would sleep comfortably.