Emma's Fantabulous Blog

SO, in moving to Boston & buying a house, we have to factor Fifi’s habitat into the equation. Currently Fifi lives in a small laundry room & is kept comfortable with humidifyers, a space heater and a variety of lights and basking levels. In our new home, we decided that it would be best if we got her an official enclosure. Looking around online, there were a couple of options, although many iguana owners choose to build their own…. Devon and I arn’t carpenters and we wanted something that wouldnt look like a 5th grade shop class assignment.

We came across the Rolls Royce of reptile enclosures. J. Worlds. Beautiful pieces that look nicer than many set ups that I’ve seen in zoos. There’s also a neat water feature with a sump pump that can be plumbed directly into you home. Super easy cleaning. Everything is hand-crafted, and it appears to be amazing quality. Also Jay, the craftsman, hand delivers the piece & sets it up for you & shows you how it works. Pretty rad, no?

After a brief consult with Jay, he said that he would be able to create a special set up to suit Fifi’s special needs. While he normal just puts vines in for reptiles, he would build some basking shelves for my balance-lacking 3 legged lizard-baby. He’d also put more vines in, so if she does happen to fall, she’ll have more chances to grab onto things to break her fall.

Basically we’re going with a model similar to this:

Fifi’s gonna be sooo excited!

Today at work, I saw my first aborted (miscarried) bat fetus. Extremely fascinating in a way. Only the size of a large ant, you could even see it’s miniature large ears.

But, oh my goodness. It was at the same time insanely traumatizing. I’m so depressed.

Today there has been tons of wildlife flying and poking around our yard. With my madd (but still growing) bird identification skillz I’ve been able name most of them. Just today Devon and I have seen:

A couple fledgeling Northern Flickers (members of the woodpecker family)

Some hungry Eastern Gray Squirrels

Clumsy and playful American Robins, including one momma bird w/some worms in her mouth….

A pointy tailed Bewick’s Wren

A shockingly colorful male Western Tanager

Uber noisy American Crows

A perching Black-Capped Chickadee

And a bunch of other birds swooping too fast for me to id.

But yeah. Pretty crazy. Lots of happy critters in our neighborhood. Yeah! It must mean that spring/summer is here!!!

I’m getting ready for Europe, as I leave today!!! Woohoo! Fricking France!!! I’m going to eat so much “bon poulet”, its going to be awesome!

In the meantime, while I’m gone: Enjoy this amazing image I found of a Green Iguana female, swimming..

Just like a little adorable Navy Seal. hehe! (click on the photo to go to the site where I found the pic)

As a random aside, did you know that iguanas can hold their breath for 20 minutes?

So for some reason my auto blog posts via YouTube don’t come through, so I’ll try this the old way…

Sea Lion & Michael Jackson video.

Oh. My. Gawd.
This is pure genius!
Love it!!!!

Title: Lizard Jenga!

Hehe.

I really adore working at PAWS (progressive animal welfare society). Every week we have a new animal with a new story. Every week I learn how to do something new. I get a great workout hauling stuff around the property and I feel like I’m doing something for the greater good.

In late November (i think) we admitted a Bald Eagle. It was covered by a major Seattle news station. It’s assumed that he was a car strike, and he was pretty busted up. He’s had surgery on his his wing in addition to having an eye injury and a wound on his skull. This is the handsome bugger shortly after we got him in.

Even looking all beat up, I still think he’s a gorgeous animal. Today I got to clean his enormous flight pen. I’d guess that its around 1000 sq ft. and 30 ft. tall. So I’m walking around cleaning the pen and he keeps flying over my head from one corner to the opposite corner. He’s massive. His wing span seems as long as I am tall. I kept thinking of that part in the Simpsons movie where Homer gets attacked by a bald eagle. Like, I know I’m too big for him, but I just worry that Mr. Eagle might confuse me with a super-sized big rat meal.

Anyways so the latest chapter to his story is that one of his super-razor-sharp talons is broken off a bit, which is bad, because it makes it harder for him to catch his prey. So today, Dr. John gave him a manicure. They put the eagle under anesthesia and squirted some resin like substance onto nail and then grinded it down into a sharp point. So Mr. Eagle has a fake nail to help him out while his talon grows back.

I dunno. The whole idea of a Bald Eagle having acrylic nails (like me) totally makes me giggle. And it was pretty cool to be able to watch. I really like working at PAWS.

We had a great Saturday at Fifi’s Halloween costume contest. Unfortunately they (the store running the contest) seemed unwilling to let a reptile win the contest, as the awards were cat and dog focused. We did get a $10 gift certificate to PetCo, but we didn’t place, or even win honorable Mention. In short. We were totally robbed.

However, Fifi totally rocked her “dog”costume. Especially amusing was the fact that a dog showed up wearing a lizard costume.

1st place went to a pirate team consisting of a little dog and a little boy. (They ALWAYS award the little kids! So unfair!)

2nd place went to a dachshund (i think) dressed as a Red Hat Society Lady. His/her costume was completely hand sewn and beaded/sequined by it’s owner. Including it’s feathered hat. The dachshund totally deserved to win.

3rd place went to a little dog team dressed as Men in Black. Talk about dressing up as totally behind the times characters. *yawn*. Fifi totally deserved at least 3rd place.

Devon took lots of pictures. Check them all out. I think my favorite “cute” costume was the squishy pug dressed as bumble bee.

Alrighty. So this saturday afternoon is Fifi’s halloween costume contest at our local Petco. Since she’s always getting beat by dogs, we decided to go with that. Our iguana will be dressing as a floppy ear-ed puppy. Its going to be so fabulous.
I found the perfect stuffed dog at a local toy store. D and I decided to gut it and then sew on elastic bands to fit Fifi into it… Now taking a knife to a stuffed animal is kinda a bizarre situation. We’ve been huge fans of the Showtime show Dexter, about a serial killer. So Devon grabbed some plastic gloves and I decided to document the occasion in a creepy kind of way. It IS Halloween after all.

Check out the album of stuffed animal carnage by clicking on the photo… (btw, the next to last photo shows fifi modeling her costume. She looks so fricking adorable!!!)

Today I had a shift at the Wildlife Center. At the beginning of every shift we have a meeting to find out about what new animals we’ve admitted.

Apparently one of the senior rehabilitators had a family of squirrels living in her yard and the momma squirrel wasn’t being super responsible. The rehabilitator would find baby squirrels lying in her yard, cold and covered in fleas. She would put the beh-beh squirrels into a makeshift nest attached to the tree that the lived in and eventually the mom would come back and collect them. But then a day or two later, the woman would find the baby squirrels lying in her yard again, cold and sick. So after a few rounds of this she ended up bringing the baby squirrels into the center.

We joked that the momma squirrel must have been the Britney Spears of mother squirrels. hehe. It’s so true.

Fyi, the baby squirrels are now being raised with us. We de-flea-ed them, they are fed regularly, they are kept warm, and they get to snuggle with each other. Hopefully we’ll be able to release them back into the wild as soon as they are big enough to survive on their own.