Mother's Day for me this year.

Once again the invitation goes out to you all.......a second day of help at my place has been organized for Sunday May 8th. I know, it's Mother's Day, but it was actually a good day for a few brave souls to tackle the task of organizing and building things around here. This year the mother of all that is fanged & furry gets a little Mother's Day treat!

So if you happen to have part of the day free, you are welcome to come by and check things out!

Friends, foes & moving day for the girls.

Still no visit from Vin yet, but Scrappy here is still making regular visits. He especially likes to show up when I'm out feeding everyone else. Hmmmmmm, wonder why that is??? LOL

After running into Scrappy I had the extreme pleasure of running into my Ringer girl! I had just thrown a little treat to Hissy out back and as I went to walk by the main feeding platform she came running down to see me. So I gave her some dinner and we hung out while she ate. She looks great and, as usual, despite not seeing each other for months, she was quite happy to see me and was more than accepting of a few scratches under the chin and behind the ears! How wonderful it is to see how well she has done since her release in 2006!!

Yesterday Laurie and I got the girls moved to the release site! After a frustrating, sometimes humorous (not all coonies turn around to bite you when you grab their tails to prevent them from getting up a tree after escaping!), sometimes painful (unfortunately for Laurie....some do when you're not the mamma and you're trying to grab them!) we FINALLY got them all packed in crates and shipped to the release site.

So in a couple weeks, Pip, Merry, Dolci, Stony, May, Amy, Moose and Kinky will be free at last! Maybe they can say Hi to Baloo, Cinn, Peanut and the gang if they run into them since it's the same release site.

My little red friends don't seem to be stalking the squirrel feeder as much....but I do occasionally have to chase one or the other off. I came downstairs the other day to find this one laying on the ground right in front of the deck. On top of the railing was a big fat (obviously very smart) squirrel....just sitting up watching it! OK....maybe it was actually taunting it! That squirrel knew to stay calm and sit tight....the fox wasn't getting it up there. LOL

I opened the kitchen window to "suggest" to the fox it might want to move along. As it took off across the yard, foiled once again, it turned and I got one last dirty look before it ran into the woods.

Instead of sauntering off into the woods as usual, I think it decided to test our intelligence a little. A grateful squirrel was not fooled in the least and opted to trot right past me into the woods while I stood guard.
Sorry little fella....I love you guys, but this is not the fox feeding station! (But it sure is nice to get such a close up look at such a beauty!)

Happy Easter everyone!

A lucky Easter for 3 new little squirrels brought in a couple days ago! Thanks to a very observant young man who brought their plight to the attention of his mother, 3 very hungry and cold young babies now have full bellies and are warm and cozy snuggled in their soft furs thanks to the coats for cubs program! 2 girls and a boy...all are doing well so far, however the boy is a little runty and not bouncing back as well as the girls, although he's eating great. Failure to thrive could be an issue, however I'm hoping he's just a late bloomer, and with some extra TLC will start to improve.....he's such a sweetheart! Peewee fits him....

Soon they will be able to join the rest of the gang.....Sweetie, the over seer of all feedings!
Luci....who I might add is not as evil anymore!

....and the yet to be named brother and sister that came in before these new 3. I may have to steal a name from JoAnn and call the little boy Wombat...with his dark nose he kind of reminds me of one!

It's a beautiful warm sunny Easter day out there....a pleasant surprise after a predicted rainy day! Enjoy the day everyone!

Thank you all...VERY MUCH!

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to everyone who came by Saturday to help me get some projects done around here! Kristen, Ryan, Sue, Jim, Celine, John, Pat, Mom, Dad, Christine & Ella....you are awesome!! And for those who couldn't be there in person (Pericles, Kim, Kristy, Jeff, Donna- to name a few!) you were there in spirit and your donations are greatly appreciated!
I wish I had thought to take before and after pictures...but my feet hit the ground running in the morning, starting with a round of feedings and I didn't stop all day..it was all a blur.

My yard is neat and clean now...not a mess....it's actually a pleasure to look at.
And my basement......where do I begin! It no longer looks like a bomb exploded in there! The guys worked on getting the shelving moved and set up so I could clear a nice space to have enclosed as an isolation area. Dad is working on that and gathering easy to disinfect materials to build it.

Everything else is cleaned up and organized and in its place. A lot of large garbage bags were hauled outta there too!

All the babies are doing great. 2 new 5wk old squirrels were added to the mix. I anticipate they will be joining Luci and Sweetie in a few days.

All the baby coonies are doing great. The youngest 4 are all taking the bottle now...no more tube feeding! Yayyyyy. Look at the difference in colors on them....ranging from quite blond to very dark brown!

Look at her go! One of Stony's girls, only 4 days old and eating like a pro. One last attempt to reunite was unsuccessful so I'm taking over as mom.

While I was out taking care of the gang last evening I was walking up the trail from the downtown pen when a raccoon ambled across the path in front of me. After my initial heart attack thinking I left a pen unsecured and someone came out to play, I realized it was Scrappy. Must have decided to come out early to cause trouble! LOL

He picked a nice spot in a tree to watch something exciting happening on the pond.


He seems to have finally found a better den than the tree next to his pen to spend his days at least. I still haven't seen Vin in quite some time. If he is still around, he's not coming by until the wee hours of the morning, unlike Scrappy who is out there most early evenings....and still happy to say Hi to me when I check on him. Hopefully Vin's fine. I have heard the familiar sound of an annoyed raccoon in the woods behind the pens and can only imagine he's up to his usual trouble-making activities with the locals now.

The new gang so far.

Well it appears our 2 little one's that got off to such a rough start have decided to stick around and enjoy the pampered life here. They are eating great, gaining weight and using a bottle now so no more tube feeding. They are lucky duckies for sure! So Lucky (left, the female) & Ducky (right, the boy) it is! An unexpected surprise in the girls pen showed up Friday. I walked out there to the sound of crying babies, and on further investigation discovered Stony had given birth to 2 little girls in one of the hammocks in the pen. Not a good spot, but OK for the day while everyone else was holed up in den boxes. Near the end of the day I moved the babies and mom into the pen vacated by Vin and Scrappy. I couldn't trust that any of the others in the pen wouldn't hurt the babies. Unfortunately after the move Stony wouldn't take care of the babies. I gave her time to settle in, but it was cold out and the babies were getting cold. So I brought them in for the night and cared for them and tried to bring them back out to here the next morning after she was settled into a den box. No luck. I put them in there and she just ran past them out of the box and began pacing the cage again. So Stony's newborns are happily settled in with Lucky and Ducky and eating well from a bottle and doing great. They are actually a little bigger than Lucky and Ducky despite being a week younger. I may make one last attempt to reunite them. Tonight when I went out there she didn't just run out of the den box, then I began tossing her some treats in there for some positive reinforcement...giving her an incentive to stay in there. Tomorrow I may try to add the babies to the treats and see if she takes over with them again. If she doesn't take them I'll bring them in permanently.

Another pair of sisters that made it here. The homeowner did something at the house and mom ran off with one baby. A fellow employee of the guy contacted Lisa and it was hoped we could try to reunite them but she said the guy was a real jerk and she was pretty sure he would just kill them. So she ran over there and grabbed them and safely delivered them to Lisa who kept them nice and cozy for the day and got them to me when I got out of work. Both are also doing great. They were in great shape to begin with having just been separated from their mom that day. One black and one brown girl.

Rounding out the raccoons we have Trooper here. The Animal Rescue League got a call from the Brighton state trooper barracks. A couple had come across this guy while walking along the Charles and brought him in. Unfortunately they didn't think to remember exactly where they found him. He was in top shape! Most likely mom had been moving him and something happened. Had we known exactly where could have attempted reuniting them.

When Brian from the ARL went in to pick him up, one of the troopers wanted to be very sure this little guy was not going to just be euthanized and told Brian as much! LOL He was reassured by Brian that he was there to rescue him, not kill him! So Brian got the absolutely adorable, chunky little guy to me and he was in such great shape my job was easy! He's huge for his age....a monster coon like Baloo was.

Thanks to the troopers that made sure he was safe!

Only 2 squirrels so far. A couple girls.

Little 5 week old Lucifer here (Luci for short)

And the 6wk old Sweetie here. I think their names speak for themselves! The picture of Luci above is her attacking me as I go to feed her....teeth gnashing and growling and charging me the whole time! Trust me the name fits! LOL

Both are doing great. Sweetie was a little emaciated when she came in but is filling out quickly and looks great and Luci calms down a little once I get a nipple of formula shoved into her mouth. Once it's gone she's Lucifer again though! LOL

An invitation to all.....

HI friends and family are meeting at Deanna's home this sat, the 16th to help her out with the already arriving animals!!! Please come and lend a hand if you can, for an hour or more. The more the merrier!!! We will meet between 9am and 10 am. Bring your tools and snacks for your favorite friends of course!!!!! Kristen

From one of my many wonderful friends and supporters! She has organized a day of help at my place to assist me with getting some of the many things done around here that I will never get to on my own now that the babies have begun to arrive! I know most of you are probably out of state...but if you happen to be in the Billerica, MA area and want to come by you are more than welcome!!! Come help get this place in shape for baby season :)

The gang's all here.

A couple days sitting at my kitchen table feeding pinkies as I stare out the kitchen window has given me the opportunity to see that most of the usual gang is back this spring.

OK so the foxes were here all along, but they have now come to think of my squirrel feeders as a possible new feeding station for them! I'm not impressed, however, with their skills.

I think this is Mr. Fox.....on his fourth unsuccessful attempt. By the time I get up to run out there and prevent a breech of the peace, he's already heading off empty handed! The weed whacker is back to keeping the lawn nice and trimmed.... ...and my favorite turkey girl is back for her usual spring retreat. She's pretty good at helping protect the squirrels at the feeder also, when she's there. The fox steers away while she's out there. She is, after all, just as big as them...if not bigger! They know better than to mess with her.

So far so good with the little coonie babies, the pinkies have gone to Lisa and although I didn't have to trade anything, I did end up with 2 more squirrels that are older and only need to eat 5 times a day instead of every 2 hours! A couple girls..1 is 5 weeks and the other 6 weeks. I'll get pics eventually!

Days off, my ass!

I went into work Sunday thinking I would finally have good weather on my days off (Mon & Tues) to catch up on things I needed to get done before the baby onslaught began.

Boy did I ever jinx myself! Before the afternoon was over I had baby calls for 4 bunnies, 4 squirrels and 5 raccoons! Luckily JoAnn was able to advise the woman who called about the bunnies so we skated on that one. I had the 4 squirrels brought to me when I was leaving work and proceeded to bring them to JoAnn's. Together we checked them out and started re hydrating them. Luckily they were in great shape. JoAnn kept them so I could head out and meet the people with the raccoons.

5 babies, about 2 days old at the most. In fact a couple still had some blood matted in the fur I'm guessing from the birth as there were no injuries at all. A raccoon had apparently been seen dead in the road in front of the house 2 days ago....meaning these little ones probably haven't even had a meal and couldn't be worse off. (Not sure a mom that just gave birth would have left the den so soon to get hit, but regardless these guys were motherless for some reason.) When I got them they were cold and one was already agonal and passed shortly thereafter.

Getting the sub q fluids in was easy, but it was a battle getting them to take anything by mouth and reboot their systems. 2 more passed over the course of the night. The remaining 2 were too weak to even try taking anything by mouth so I resorted to tube feeding to try to ever so gradually get the much needed fluids and calories into them.

It has now been 48 hours and I'm happy to report that brother and sister are still hanging in there. We've got poop and weight gain!! But I won't stop holding my breath until at least a week has passed! Sometimes the damage done when the system shuts down sneaks up on you later, after you think they are fine, they suddenly fade on you again.

You can still see the umbilical cord on the little one on the left in this picture. In the middle of all that these 2 baby squirrels came in. Equally as young, something got at the nest. They were found on the ground and have some cuts and bruising on them. They are so tiny I can barely focus on them as I feed them!

So every 2 hours feeding the squirrels and every 3 hours feeding the raccoons makes for a very sleepless me!! (JoAnn, Lisa and Mary are in the same boat too!) Lisa was going to be getting some older squirrels in so we are sort of planning on trading them....once I go back to work there is no way I will be able to feed the little pinkies every 2 hours like they need, so I'll take some older ones that need to eat less often.

Enjoy your vacation Laurie while you can, you lucky dog!! :) It has officially begun.

ARL Boston to the rescue!

I work in Waltham and a lot of people call the police when they see an animal in need of rescue. Luckily for us we have the Animal Rescue League to help out with things we are just not equipped to handle!

At the end of March we were getting A LOT of calls about this Canada goose with a 6 pack ring around it's neck. (Another good reason to take care of your trash properly!!!!! But that's another soap box for another time......) Some of our officers attempted to get him with no luck, and on my trip out there he wasn't around. The ARL got these pics during several trips out there to attempt to get him. He was not making it easy!

Finally.....an update on April 6 on their Twitter page.....Yayyyyy, rescue accomplished!! Persistence pays. They also dealt with another goose issue in Waltham. This pair picked a hell of a place to nest!

But they checked them out and got these pics of Mom and Dad goose doing just fine tending to their nest. It's actually perfectly situated to protect it from predators, but not going to be easy for the babies when they hatch to get down and head toward the water!

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it I guess!

A boring update....

Well not much going on here yet (knock on wood, fingers crossed, etc. etc.!)

The boys are ready to go...I only hesitate until the babies with River are a little older so if they hang around bugging the girls, it will not put the babies in jeopardy.

The girls are just waiting for Kinky's foot to heal now. She's already using it again, I'm just waiting for the wound to granulate in a little more. Hopefully not too much longer then they will get moved to the Framingham release site....maybe run into Baloo and Cinnamon and say Hi for me!

I have not seen Trouble #1 (aka Vin) in over a couple weeks. I'm torn between worry and relief....but as we all know he is great at finding his way home if he gets into trouble. I'm sure he's just out there annoying all the new ladies he's been meeting!

Then there's Trouble #2 (aka Scrappy)! He's still around making nightly visits to the girls. In fact, until about 4 nights ago, he was denning up a tall pine tree between the main pen and his short lived new pen. He's apparently found a new place to sleep, but not a new place to hang out. He's not as annoying though. I think the gang is more jealous than annoyed with him and he's still happy to come play with me a little when I go out to check on him......especially when mini-marshmallows are involved!

A small amount of pinkies have filtered in.....so far Laurie, Lisa, Mary and JoAnn are handling them. Lisa had a single fox kit come in a couple days ago. A little older than our litter of 11 and in very bad shape. Unfortunately the poor little thing didn't make it :(

Right now we are bracing ourselves.....and cringing every time the phone rings! LOL

Monday is my day off and it's supposed to be pretty nice out! Yayyyyyyy.

I'll try and get some pics of the gang to show you how awful they look! The are all molting and their coats look like crap....making for some silly looking coons. We'll see how the camera behaves....lately it's been acting up and I think it's on it' last legs!!

Red fox kits rescued.

OK...be prepared for the ultimate cuteness!

Laurie got a call from an alpaca farm in our area that found a litter of fox pups in the barn. They had seen the mom laying in the field one day. But 2 days later when she was still there, they knew something was wrong. On closer inspection she looked perfectly normal like she was just laying there, however when they turned her over she was torn apart. Poor thing had fallen victim to some type of predator....possibly a coyote or fisher?

It wasn't hard to find a litter of hungry, crying kits in the barn. A litter of 11! Yup.....11! Holy cow!! That is unusually large for a fox litter. (or any litter for that matter...hehehe).

So the kind woman brought them to Laurie at work and she and Lisa began the re hydration process....while we tried to figure out what the heck we were going to do with them all.

So I met up with them after work and we divided and conquered. I took 4, Lisa took 4 and Laurie took 3.

Now...prepare for the cuteness! Here is my gang in all their glory!

2 boys and 2 girls and I loved every moment with them....even the late night hours! They were quite vocal and full of personality....even at 2-3wks old. It's amazing how much quicker they mature than our domestic dogs! These guys were already wrestling, dominating each other and had even eaten some soaked puppy chow! One of the females had some serious attitude....she would attack the bottle, growl and shake the nipple into submission, making sure she had properly subdued the beast before finally deciding it was OK to actually drink the formula from it and fill her belly.

As soon as the bellies were full, into their "den" for some serious nap time.

Once again I contacted Dawn out in Western Mass. and she agreed to take the whole gang of them! She's a wonderful rehabber and specializes in coyote and fox. In fact she's the one that took my coyote pups last year.

And once again we lucked out with the transport all the way out there. Thanks again to Jim (and his very polite and accommodating sidekick Samantha!) who let them hitch a ride.

So Lisa collected the other 7 together and brought them over here to be reunited as one big happy litter of 11 again. Then I packed them up and off they went....sniff, sniff....

Oh it was so hard parting with them! But it's best for them so.....

One last pic before I left.....an adorable pile of 11 sleeping fox kits tucked away all snug and safe!

So thanks to a combined effort from a lot of people...these little guys are in good hands! Can't thank you enough Dawn!