My Own Devices, and more on Crow
I'd rather be birding today than working, but with only 4 days to enter comments from 16 doc reviews, I am working at home. My home office has a wonderful bright window on a big maple in my front yard, so it's a grand place to work, but it's a beautiful day outside and I'm disappointed that I can't enjoy it. Oh, and I broke my LibraryThing widget migrating my page to this cool new format.
The crow visit was a letdown. Instead of an outside aviary, like our owls had, the crow has to be kept indoors, and the feathers and whatnot set off my allergies. Plus my inner germophobe worried about West Nile virus and psittacosis and also germs from the baby (which is sick) in the household where the crow lives in a bathroom... The crow herself is, well, a bit strange. The rehabbers got her at less than a year old due to a head injury and nobody's sure if she can process what she sees correctly. (They don't know the sex; just decided to call it "she".) So her intellect is in question.
I am disappointed in myself to see that her handicap diminished my respect and enthusiasm for caregiving, but I think I can dig down and find some compassion. I have grown even closer to my senior hedgie, Queenie, since nerve damage disabled her. I just need some time to bond with Crow, I guess. Oh, and instead of just observing, my visits now include changing her crow-pooped floor sheets (ugh) and weighing her (ok). At least I don't have to cut up dead mice to feed her.
But this reminds me of what the zookeepers at Stone Zoo always said. People think animal care is fun until they realize that most of it is feeding and cleaning. Still, I remember all the moments with my pets, with the owls, and with the horses I cared for one year, when I was just blown away by something so graceful and unexpected and perfect that the animal did, a look, a gesture, a reaction... That's what keeps me engaged.
The crow visit was a letdown. Instead of an outside aviary, like our owls had, the crow has to be kept indoors, and the feathers and whatnot set off my allergies. Plus my inner germophobe worried about West Nile virus and psittacosis and also germs from the baby (which is sick) in the household where the crow lives in a bathroom... The crow herself is, well, a bit strange. The rehabbers got her at less than a year old due to a head injury and nobody's sure if she can process what she sees correctly. (They don't know the sex; just decided to call it "she".) So her intellect is in question.
I am disappointed in myself to see that her handicap diminished my respect and enthusiasm for caregiving, but I think I can dig down and find some compassion. I have grown even closer to my senior hedgie, Queenie, since nerve damage disabled her. I just need some time to bond with Crow, I guess. Oh, and instead of just observing, my visits now include changing her crow-pooped floor sheets (ugh) and weighing her (ok). At least I don't have to cut up dead mice to feed her.
But this reminds me of what the zookeepers at Stone Zoo always said. People think animal care is fun until they realize that most of it is feeding and cleaning. Still, I remember all the moments with my pets, with the owls, and with the horses I cared for one year, when I was just blown away by something so graceful and unexpected and perfect that the animal did, a look, a gesture, a reaction... That's what keeps me engaged.