By Corina Cook

 

May 27, 2000

(Saturday)

 

            Wow! I spent the whole day at Cedar Cove. I got there at 9:30 and I think I woke Mr. P up. ;)  I met Shelly, the other handler, and we went in through the Education Building.  It’s a little better since my first day at Cedar Cove, Feb. 2 for “Groundhog Job Shadowing Day.”  The ceiling was up, the display case was in place and the bathroom was done (sorta. I hear there’s been some plumbing difficulties.) 

            The big storm from last night blew down several branches, including a big branch that fell right on the electric fence.  Miraculously, when the branch fell it was partially stopped by the half-sawed off telephone pole, so it only bent the wire a little, as opposed to ruining the fence. Mr. Pottorff sawed off bits of the branch to lighten the load till the tree man got here.  We loaded the branches into the wheelbarrow and carted them off to the burn pile.

            It was time for the annual scrubbing of the tiger dens. Sammy Lee and Sierra never went into their dens last night, even with the big storm.  Shelly would transfer the tigers from one cage to another; she just opened the little gate between cages and the tiger automatically went through.  Then she went into the den with brush and bleach, griping loudly about the stench. (Though really, if you don’t get the tiger smell full strength it could almost be pleasant!)  She also did the normal cleaning of the actual cages, spraying down the floors & bars, cleaning up messes, bones, and twigs that fell during the storm.  I got to rake fur. ;)  Really! I took a little rake and scratched up the fur from the gravel outside the cages. (It’s the shedding season so there was plenty of it!)  I had to stand back a distance and just reach with the rake at Sierra & Sammy Lee’s cages, since they weren’t locked in their dens.  I talked to Sierra and told her what a pretty kitty she was till she stopped staring at me and calmed down.  Then when I did the fur by Sammy Lee’s cage I told him he was prettier than Sierra (but not to tell her that! ;)  Later, I don’t know if he was playful or serious, Sam would go to the back of his cage, stare at me with a wild look in his eyes and rush at me like he wanted to pounce on me. It was kind off funny, because I could always see it coming and would stop raking, step back and just watch him come. I also learned (fortunately not from experience) that you have to watch a tiger’s goings as well as comings. They like to spray a lot. ;)  We dumped all the fur, bones and general junk into a plastic bag.

            I can tell all the cats apart to a certain extent.  For the tigers: Earl is big and always on the end cage; Tiny Linn is pretty small and has rather dense stripes on her body; Gunny is huge and is our male Siberian; Sierra is the other Siberian but isn’t nearly as big, and has only half a tail thanks to Sam; Leonard is pretty big and has pointed eyes, Pauline has very dense stripes on her face; then there’s an empty cage and then Sammy Lee’s on the end. Sam is big too, rather temperamental, ever-so-slightly cross eyed, and probably the prettiest of all.  Gunny and Sierra are siblings, Earl, Tiny, and Pauline are littermates, and Leonard and Sammy Lee are half-brothers.  For the Cougars: In one cage is Cootie, the biggest, and Shyanne, who was rather shy and nervous at the moment. In the other cage is Duchess, who I think has a blue collar, and Missy Lou, who has a very high forehead and a bad eyetooth so her eye is messed up.  The two cute little bobcats, who I swear have barely grown an inch in the 3 months I’ve been gone, are Mitch and Buffy.  Mitch has two stripes down his back.

            The tree man arrived and sawed off the rest of the branch. Another miracle happened; Mr. Tree (har har) remembered the metal pole with all the big live wires inside that stands against the telephone pole when he could see it, but when he went to the other side of the phone pole…. well, he was sawing around the pole, toward himself and the saw got the pole and took a bit out of the wires, too.  Mr. P said later that the hole was smoking, and you could see that it looked like a burn hole.  Miraculously, Mr. Tree was unharmed. (Did you know that he has an insulated saw? I guess if you fix fallen limbs for a living it’s only to be expected.)

            Shelly and I started to clean the first cougar cage.  We scraped out all the nasties, sprayed out the dumb tree seeds that covered the floor, and had just poured bleach water across when someone showed up wanting to see the tigers. We just left the bleach water there; it’ll just kill the germs and clean the cougar’s paws as well. There’s a disease the cats can get from cleaning their dirty paws, but I can’t remember it’s name.  We let the people into the Education building and talked to them (and I got to show off; I knew the names of the 3 extinct subspecies of tigers! Bali, Caspian and Javan!)  Shelly gave them a little tour speech while showing them the tigers, and Mr. P rescued a big white tub he was throwing out and turned it into the Official Dish Washing Tub. Yay. Now the bobcats get their dish washed out in a tub, not just scrubbed in bleach water. ;) (That’s one thing about bobcats; they like to go in their water dish. They also sleep in their litter box, for that matter.)  I cleaned up the rest of the junk we hosed out of the cougar cage and put it in the trash bag, which we tied up and put with the rest of the trash in the back of Mr. P’s ‘Catman’ jeep.

            It was interesting to ride in the jeep. Not only does it not have seatbelts, but this time it had no doors! Mr. P took them off when it got warmer.  We drove to a gas station where Mr. P is allowed to use the dumpster.  He unloaded the back and bought me a drink and we drove back.  We stopped by the lake where Mr. Fish was opening a bag of dog food.  The lake is stocked with lots of fish, but I guess the rain had stirred up lots of food for them; they just weren’t hungry. I told Mr. P about my grandma and her catfish (Here fishy, fishy, fishy! ;)  We went back to the house and I oohed and awed over the Burmese-looking-cat’s adorable little kittens. The little gray cat, which I’d held and cuddled off and on throughout the day, was tuckered out by the grill.  That little gray cat was a kitten last time I was there!  Mrs. P was grilling steak and bratwurst for supper. =) The bratwurst was really good served as a hotdog, and the steak was nice too. I ate till I was stuffed (we didn’t eat lunch so I was starved!) while watching the news. I stuck my hand in the bird’s cage and tried to catch it for a while (I think it was a cockatoo.) Mr. P said they used to have a gray one that would hop right on your finger, but it died. They never really tried much to train the white one, and it showed. It hopped all over its cage and refused to be petted or held.  This is when I obtained my only injury for the day; the bird got its wing caught in the bars (how? Don’t ask me) and went crazy. It bit me on my finger till Mr. P got its wing out of the bars. I guess I have a higher pain tolerance than I give myself credit for; instead of screaming and tugging my finger away, I stared and said “That’s quite a bite you’ve got there.” It could’ve been funny if it wasn’t me. ;)  After that I heard a kitten mewing and went outside. It had wandered off, so I carried it back to the rest of the litter.  Mr. P insisted on taking me home again, as he had nothing else to do now.  My dogs were kinda funny; since there’s no door to the jeep, there was a row of noses sniffing Mr. P!  =P  I sat on Polly and held the Pretend Dog while he drove off, and went inside to proudly show off my giant tiger whisker! =)