Home Sweet Home (8-13)

Well, I've made it back to Texas and it's good to sleep in my own bed again! Sorry I wasn't able to update my blog at all while I was gone but I hope you still enjoy seeing what I was up to the past month. I've certainly learned a lot! I've slept with a giraffe, caught an owl, befriended a crow, plucked and cut up a whole chicken (that was pleasant), bathed a serval, built cages and met a lot of wonderful people. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers and if you want any more details about my trip, let me know! I'll leave y'all with a few more pictures.

I unfortunately do have a bit of sad news as well. Duke (the giraffe) passed away on Wednesday from tick bite fever. He will be forever loved and missed.

Messing with Kevin the wild ostrich

MaloRee, Me, and Alice with the cats

George and I sunbathing


Wild Care Africa

Taking Duke for a walk

RIP Duke

London, again (8-12)

I managed to explore Heathrow a lot more this time around. Our flight was delayed from 11:40am to 3:20pm so I had time to eat a traditional English breakfast (minus the beans), drink a lot of tea, and take some pictures.

English breakfast

The door wouldn't open so I had to settle with standing next to it

Ridiculous chocolate bar

Giant cup of tea

8-11

This morning I finished packing, took a few more final photos, and said goodbye to everyone before heading to the airport. When we got to the airport we (MaloRee, Alice, and I) got to eat some real food and shop before getting on the plane for an 11 1/2 hour flight back to London.

Real Food (bacon cheeseburger and diet coke)

The castle where we lived

Nelson Mandela made out of beads at the Johannesburg airport

8-10

A cold front has blown through so it's been pretty chilly (about like a Texas winter). Two other girls and I leave tomorrow so we went around taking pictures and saying goodbye to the animals today. We were going to have another braai tonight but it's too windy so we made spaghetti instead.

Me on the balcony

Sunset

The bush baby eating yogurt


The mongoose like to snuggle when it's cold

8-8

We've been really busy lately because we keep getting more animals. Besides the animals we already had (servals, caracal, crow, chameleon, stripped pole cat, giraffe, barn owl, spotted eagle owls, sun conures, mongoose, and guinea fowl) we've gotten 2 porcupines, 3 leopard tortoises, 2 more barn owls, 3 more guinea fowl, and a bush baby since I've been here. Besides feeding all the animals, we have to keep their cages clean and make sure they don't get bored. Everyday we're divided into teams of 3 or 4 and assigned 4 or 5 animals to take care of. Some animals require more attention (like the cats and Duke) so usually everybody helps out with them.

Hydrating the leopard tortoises

Barney the barn owl

Trying to retrieve a serval from a tree

8-4

Today we went on another nature walk (we do one at least once a week). We look for spoor (tracks) and feces and try to identify them so we know which animals are in our area. Usually the mongoose join us on our walks as well. We didn't find many tracks today but we did find a wart hog skull.

Examining the spoor

Keeping the mongoose hydrated

Wart Hog Skull

8-3

Today we did lots of work to clear an area to build a new cat cage. We had to cut down trees and dig up stumps as well as deal with lantana (an invasive weed with sharp thorns). While we were working we found a wild chameleon. He was a lot bigger than George, our dwarf chameleon. We had another braai tonight as well (we usually have a couple every week).

Lantana

Before

After (it still needs to be covered in wire)

The chameleon we found

Hendrick at the braai pit