Beginning of the End.

Second to last week in Tassie. I cannot believe it's already almost over!

Monday:

Since Monday was a really nice day, that meant raking had to be done. Sighhhhhhh. Justine and Erin would rake up piles along paths, and I would follow them picking up the piles and putting them in a wheelbarrow. So lame. We didn’t finish the paths though, which means more raking on Tuesday!... Booooooo.

Adam brought me in the baby devil enclosure to show me how to catch the baby girl devil that they use for the pats at the devil feeds. She is in there with her brother and they like to hang out in the back of this impossible to get into place. You have to use a stick and separate the brother from the sister and then put a bag over the sisters face so that you can grab her. I had a difficult time with it. They were being real growly, and even tried to get at my hand. I had Adam help me eventually. Hah. Oh wellll. I’m glad I tried though, I’ll hopefully get the hang of it.

So we have little cubbies in the staff room to put our stuff in. Aussies don’t call them cubbies though. Haha. We said the word cubbies and Erin goes, “No. Cubbies are what you make with sheets and chairs and beds and stuff.” I responded with, “No way! Those are forts!” It turned into a friendly Australian vs. Americans argument about the words cubby and fort. Haha. It was awesome. How weird is it that they call forts, cubbies? Crazy Aussies.

The Toro works! Huzzah! I always wanna drive it because it’s the only automatic thing at the zoo that I can actually drive. Adam told us Erin, Justine, and I to go do branches in the Lion Tail enclosure and the baby devil enclosure. I was like, “....Can I take the Toro?!” He is the Head Keeper, but he doesn’t like saying we are allowed to do stuff just in case Rob or Dick doesn’t approve, so he said, “I’m not saying anything. You can go ask Rob if you like.” I was like, “Come onnnnn. I’ve driven it before. Whinge whinge whinge.” I was being a sook. Finally, I was like, “Well it’s not that far and I don’t want to carry the branches, so I’ll take it and it’s not like I can get in that much trouble!” Justine and Erin were like, “You rebel” and didn’t get in the Toro with me. So I went by myself. Haha. I saw Caroline and Dick and neither of them got mad. After that Erin and Justine drove it and then I didn’t get another chance to drive because they were hogging it. I was the one who took the initiative to drive it! Bums.

I had a glass shattering moment about myself thanks to Erin. There was this real cool tree, and Erin was like, “Oh I want one of those in my yard!” and I said, “Mm yeah that tree is real fun!” She said, “You refer to things as fun all the time.” I do. I’ve realized it now. It drives me crazy.

Tuesday:

Animals are dropping dead at the zoo. Rob put out some poison to kill all the wasps around the zoo. Instead some birds have died and some wild pademelons have been found dead around the zoo. One of the peacocks that walk around the zoo was found dead on the roof of the koala enclosure. Now his little friend walks around by himself and is lonely.

I felt real sick after lunch and went home early, and Erin was like, “Mm maybe you got poisoned too.” Haaa. That’s not something you say to a crazy hypochondriac. After that I was trying to remember if I had somehow been in contact with the poison at all. Luckily I couldn’t think of any possible way that I could’ve been in contact with it, so I gave up on the poisoned theory. Haha.

Before I went home early, we spent the whole day raking again! Booo. We finished it all just before lunch though, so that was good because it meant no more raking the next day. We had the zoo in pretty good shape. There wasn’t much to left to do around the zoo. For that week at least.

There was a huge group of like high school aged kids at the zoo. They saw Leia and Harrison in the chook yard, so Erin and I went and got them out to let everyone have a pat. They loved it. I loved showing Leia off, as well. She was clutching on to my shirt like she didn’t want me to let her go. It was adorable. Although, I think she was also getting a little stressed by how many people were trying to pet her, so in retrospect it probably wasn’t the best idea, but she needs to get used to people if she’s going to be living in a zoo.

So Justine had fed the baby devils a few times by now. I had not. Adam came in to work on Tuesday saying, “Caitliiinnnn I have a surprise for you later todayyyyy.” I don’t generally like surprises. Erin guessed though and was like, “Is she feeding the baby devils today?” Then Adam was all sooky and was like, “It was meant to be a surprise..” I guess he was just going to take me to the devil feed with him and then be like, “Righto, here’s the wallaby leg, now hop in!” Eek. I went home though, so I didn’t get to do it.

Wednesday:

I felt much better on Wednesday. Like a million times better than Tuesday, plus work was super awesome.

Unfortunately, I found another dead pademelon.. It was just a little baby one, too. Stupid Rob and his stupid poison.. Also, one of the Long Tail macaques is injured. There’s a huge gash across it’s chest and upper arm. It looks real bad. The monkey was just sitting there holding its arm and licking the wound. That’s all the bad news for Wednesday.

I actually managed to get the baby girl devil out by myself! Hurray me! I’ve also been holding her for pats at the devil feeds! It’s awesome.

I’ve been allowed to drive the toro around. So that’s pretty fun.

Adam took Justine and I to catch some quolls! We each got to catch a few. It was awesome. He showed us how and then let us try. Those quolls are super fast. You’re meant to grab their tails and pull the up real fast so they can’t grab on to stuff. You also can’t really hold on to them very long because they can crawl up their tail to bite you. I guess quolls are known as the chainsaws of the bush because of how sharp their teeth are. Anyway, I caught myself some quolls and it was awesome! We were meant to catch a pair of quolls to send to Melbourne zoo, so we spent majority of the day going in to different quoll enclosure to check out the quolls and see which ones we wanted to send. So I didn’t do much else on Wednesday during work besides do awesome things, and walk around to quoll enclosures. Hah.

I fed the younger devils!! I went with Adam to the last devil feed because he feeds the younger ones for the last one. I wouldn’t go in with the adult devils because they are a lot stronger and could actually really really hurt me badly if they get to me. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I don’t know how Adam and Erin manage to feed them and talk at the same time because I was just trying to make sure they weren’t trying to get me instead of the meat the whole time. It was definitely an experience though, I’m glad I did it and didn’t chicken out!

I registered for my Fall classes! I was worried because our internet had been working great and then it stopped working all of a sudden on Wednesday morning and I found out that the zoo’s internet wasn’t working either. So I was having a panic attack about registering. Our internet was working when I got home though, so I registered and got all of my classes that I need, even though I don’t want to even take most of them.. Haha. Cursed chemistry and physics.. It’ll be a really rough semester.

I finished the Seven Keys to the Kingdom series! Huzzah! It was good. It had a decent ending as well. I didn’t actually guess what would happen. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I really like Garth Nix. Next up, I’m reading the Fablehaven author’s new book!

Thursday:

So Dick put all of the Long Tails in this little cramped cage over night, including the injured one. Four male monkeys stuck in a tiny little space.. I don’t know what he was thinking when he made that decision. When they let the monkeys out, trying to isolate the injured one so they could check it out, we discovered two of the other monkeys had injuries as well! What the heck! It makes me so mad that they are being so stupid about serious stuff. When we told Dick about the first monkey, he was just like, “Well it’s licking the wound like a dog so obviously it’ll be fine. We will just leave it for now.” Uhhhhh... what? That didn’t even make sense, but you can’t really argue with the boss man. So two other monkeys got injured quite badly because he was being an idiot. One of them has this massive gash across its back and another has a cut on its throat that Rob says isn’t deep, but Adam says that it is a lot deeper than Rob is letting on. Cody, Mel’s son, was at the zoo with Rob. So while Rob and them were checking out the monkeys, I was stuck chasing Cody around. That boy does not know the meaning of obedience. He is way spoiled. So I was running around and yelling at him. Alice, one of the ladies that works in the reception area was like, “Uh.. you have a job to be doing, why the heck are you stuck babysitting him? Why isn’t he with his mother?” It was funny. Aaron saw me chasing after Cody and was like, “Hahahah Hey mum!” It was so lame.

They finally called to get a vet out. So Thursday was full of lots of waiting and not doing much and watching. The vet came and tried sedating one of the monkeys, but the monkey pretty much refused to pass out. Finally they just sedated the one with the gash on its back, and he passed out immediately. I got to see the monkey up really close and look at his wound. It was real bad. He had lots of little bite marks other places as well. He had to be rushed to the vet’s office because he needed stitches and a drain like right away, so we took that monkey and the one with the big gash on its chest, and headed to the vet’s office. On the drive there we passed this farm or whatever that had white wallabies! I was so excited! They are just albino wallabies, and apparently are a pain to take care of because they are more prone to tumors and stuff and get sunburns, etc. They are sooooo cute though. We finally got to the vet and brought the monkeys in. The vet lady told us that we could stay and observe! So we got to watch her put stitches in a monkey! How many people can say that they’ve seen that! Ha! She had to do inner stitches in the muscles and then put a drain in and the do more stitches on the outside. It was fascinating. I’ve never seen someone put stitches in in real life, so it was really cool! If I have, then I forget.. Anyway, it was super awesome. Our last days at the zoo have been full of excitement!

It is Friday right now, and we are leaving soon to go camping with Erin and her family and her boyfriend and some other people. I really don’t know who all is going, but Erin’s family owns some property on the east coast of Tassie. Should be fun, or really really really cold.. Hah. Anyway, it’s my last weekend in Tassie! I am a little sad that I’ll be leaving soon, but I’m pretty excited as well. It’s been a really great learning experience for me here.

Bahahahahaha there was just a lizard in our living room, and Justine tried to catch it, but she grabbed the tail and it dropped its tail!!! I’ve never seen a lizard do that!! The tail still wiggled around lots after it was cut loose! SOOOO FUNNYY!!!!