I'm running on three and a half hours of sleep, I just did a three hour photo session with the animals for photography students, I'm really hungry right now, and my curling iron broke. 

It's a rough day, but I'm happy, and that's because I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. And every single day, I wake up ready to make the most of that day, and sometimes that means just eating root beer floats all day and sitting on the couch and watching movies. Yeah, like I could do that for more then a couple of hours. 

But, anyway I digress. I am happy and I just love doing what I'm doing, and, um, today is a day to be excited for being and doing and yay!

Today we're going to talk about what's going on at Animal Wonders. Just things that are happening right now. Um, we are just-- we have a few more days. We're just getting done with our really busy season and we're getting to this pretty slow season, aka the beginning of school when nothing happens. So we take this time to really just add some extra projects on, like we aren't already busy enough, and, um, take care of things that have just been kind of, you know left unattended, like paperwork.

So Kemosabe got sick. Um, he's been sick for about two weeks, and we started noticing that had had a raspy voice and so we had a vet come out and-- and helped take care of him, and-- and we had to trim his teeth at the same time. Remember, has has only one top incisor. That's why we have to trim his teeth, and, uh, we started giving him medication because he had a respiratory infection, and then he stopped drinking water and it was really really stressful. 

It's so stressful when one of our animals is sick and it, like, puts a cloud over everything else we do, um, but he's finally on the mend after nine days. He started drinking water again, he started being more active, and it's just like the sun comes out and it's so happy. So, Kemosabe is on the mend right now, so that's wonderful.

So, we're working with Rook the Raven on how to perch on my hand so that he can do presentations. Rook is from the wild. He was found in the wild with a broken wing that had already healed. He actually can't even open his wing. He can't fly. If he was left in the wild, he would die, um, so we have him for the rest of his life and, um, part of the requirements for our permits to be able to keep him is that we do twelve, "exhibitions" is what they call it; it's twelve educational presentations with him every year, and so we have to get him used to being on my hand so we can go out and do presentations with him.

So, that's what we've been working on right now and it's, um- it's proven a challenge because he never had any of this done before this. This is the first time, so it's challenging for him, and challenging for me and, um, it's probably one of my favorite things working with animals is overcoming these communication, um, gaps that we have, and, uh, so, it- 

First thing we needed to do was get him comfortable taking food from my hand, which-- that took, like, two months, um, but it was so exciting when he finally took it. He didn't bite me and he didn't run away and he took the food, so that was a huge thing. He realized, "Oh, these people are not going to hurt me. They're going to give me treats and it's going to be wonderful."

So, the next thing we had to do towards, um, the goal of getting him on my hand and comfortable on there to do presentations was, we had to fit him with anklets, um, go around his ankles, and he had to get used to those, comfortable with them on. He did. He took to them pretty darn quickly, just in- just about two days. And then now, it's his turn to actually sit on my hand and be calm and comfortable and know that I'm not going to hurt him and, in fact, he will get more treats when he sits on my hand, so that's the goal right now and it's pretty exciting.

Yeah! Yay!

We're preparing our open enclosure space for a new animal ambassador. No Spoilers!

Cas the Arctic Fox is growing in his white winter fur underneath his gray summer fur, so he's getting big and fluffy and super soft and super cute. But he's also wanting, like, twice as much food as he did, like, a month ago and so his relationship with Seraphina, the red fox -- they live together -- and, uh, their relationship is getting a little bit more competitive. Now, we increase their diet, don't worry, during this time, um, but still, that competition, he still feels the need to be extra vocal about declaring that his food is his and not hers, so that's always fun.

A few of the birds have gone through a molt and their new feathers are in and they look pretty silly, and we are choosing which projects to focus on for the next two months while shows are slow. 

Right now I'm voting for building the dirt room enclosure expansion thingy, huge awesome project for the cavies, and I'm also voting for taking all of the dirty dirt in the fox dirt room enclosure, getting out of there and putting new stuff in and renovating that space and launching a new funding source so that we could make these videos sustainable. What do you think?

So, even though I'm exhausted, starving, over-worked, and slightly delirious, I can't help but continue to dream about how I can take each day and improve on something. You can never stop improving and I would love for you guys to be involved, so if you have any ideas on what we can improve on, please let me know. You can find me on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, and you can follow us on an adventure every week by subscribing to Animal Wonders Montana. Thanks, guys!

You've a bird on your perch here, and you're going to present your finger. Now, the important- you don't want to present your finger fingers-first, these fingers-first, and you don't want to try and grab them this way or-

Yeah!