Trauma Update

Can I just say how pissed off I am at the Porter County Animal Control? They never came. I called them at 4:30pm and that poor raccoon lay on my patio until 9pm when Spiderman noticed that it had disappeared. I have no idea what happened to it, but I hope it doesn't come back today now that it knows where to get food. I'd like to think that it crawled away and died and that it's not still somewhere suffering. It comforts me to think that because the alternative just upsets me more.

Day of Trauma

Today was a busy day at work. Wednesdays are always busy. I have two sets of students. We have two local schools that offer Respiratory programs and I'm the clinical instructor for both. One group comes the beginning of the week and the other comes at the end. On Wednesdays they overlap. It's a little stressful since the programs are different and teach at a completely different pace. There's a huge gap in the knowledge and skills between the two schools as each is in a different place in the program. This makes for a busy day keeping these students entertained while teaching them something and also preventing them from doing bodily harm. My day was just about ending. I had let the students leave an hour early and was going to play catch up on some of my paperwork. Then I got the page. They were shutting down power to an entire wing of the hospital. Unfortunately, this was the wing where both our Cardiac ICU and Neuro ICU are located. We had to move all the patients on life support out of the ICU's and to another wing. It was great fun and exactly how I wanted to end my workday.
When I finally got home I looked out my patio door to find a young raccoon gimping around my backyard. It looked to have a broken leg and was shaking so bad it could hardly get the birdseed it was so frantically trying to get to. Now I don't know why, but this greatly upsets me. I cannot bear to see any animal suffer like this. It keeps wiggling around and is now laying panting and shaking on my back porch. The kitties keep pacing back and forth and banging on the glass. I called animal control and they said it would be several hours before they could get here because "bubba" is out on the boat. I'm sorry, isn't this thier JOB? Isn't this what they get PAID for? I know I sound a little crazy, I don't even get this worked up when I see people suffer. (I think you get numb to it) But this little guy has been laying here struggling for 2 hours now and I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE! I hope they come soon before I'm completely traumatized for life.

Wild Kingdom!

Here I was thinking I lived in a nice normal suburb. Apparently, where I REALLY live is a Zoo.
I was getting ready for dinner and happened to look out my kitchen window. There, at my bird feeder was....a freakin' RACCOON! What's next? Deer? A moose?
And when I went out there screeching did the raccoon run away? NO! It looked at me like I was annoying it until I was almost right by it. I could have smacked the thing. I was waving my arms around and screeching obscenities like an idiot and it finally decided "whoa this lady's nuts" and ran away.
I would have taken a picture, but I kinda freaked out because I've only had that bird feeder for a little over two weeks and Racoon's can be destructive. I'm gonna have to buy me a new feeder that's critter proof.

Mystery Of The Backyard Holes Solved!

The mystery is solved. Today I was in my backyard filling the bird feeders and found out who lives in the holes. It's a chipmunk and his name is Chuck.
This is what he looks like.

Well. Actually it's more like this.
I'm very relieved and now will not be forever banished from the backyard. So our total now is
1. flock of birds
2. family of bunnies (momma, papa, and two babies)
3. a chipmunk
4. a squirrel

I wonder if we can start charging them rent.