Sunfish and storm clouds.

What an eventful day, sugarcoated by an awesome night. I'm so elated right now it's hard to put myself back in the somber mood of the afternoon, so I will start by describing my evening. Another intern here had developed a project. He wanted to add some sunfish to a large exhibit tank. Because this new tank had bass in it, and bass eat sunfish, he wanted to have the fish moved at night when the bass would be sleeping, giving the newly introduced guys time to get acclimated and find hiding places. Obviously, the zoo is not open at night, so going there was already going to be an adventure. However, just before we were planning to walk to the zoo (about a quarter mile wooded stretch), the skies darkened, opened up, and it started to pour while thunder rolled and lightning struck. Well, we still had to get the fish moved, so we donned what little rain gear we had and walked to the zoo. When we first got there, it was only sprinkling, and though I had to sit in a wet truck bed, leaving my rear on the not-so-dry side, the rest of me was doing all right. We got into the reptile house, where the sunfish, as well as their new tank were, and another fellow intern and I perused the reptile collection sans the general public while they caught and bucketed the 100 fish for transfer. While exploring, we started an animal guessing game--twenty questions essentially, but always with animal subjects. It was great fun, and we laughed alot. The fish got moved to their new tank, and what a commotion that caused! All other fish and turtles in the tank became very active, following the new guys around. We only saw two become a meal, but we shall see what the morrow will bring. After the fish were taken care of, we had to move a bucket of hay to a barn across the zoo. Thankfully, the night keepers had left us use of an old, red, finnicky truck named Cletus. Now Cletus doesn't always like to go, and will frequently shut off in the middle of driving. As we drove down a dirt road in the pouring rain, hitting potholes filled with water, bumping along as Cletus kept shutting of, we were having a great deal of fun. We stopped for all toads we came across, and at one point one intern even got out in the torrential rain to personally pick one up off the road. As she bent reaching for it, it hopped right up between her legs and flew off into the grass. Well, her purpose was accomplished and we carried on. Each time the truck would stall in the middle of the heavily green back acres of the zoo, which had begun to resemble a bit of a rainforest in the lightning's glow and rains darkening, we felt as if we were in Jurassic Park, about to meet up with an unlucky fate. We had to walk that quarter mile back home in the rain and dark, thankful that such storming probably kept the coyotes and mountain lions away from us. We sang "Raindrops keep falling on my head," and I spun around happily as I let my hair get soaked. The earth takes on a beautiful calm as night has fallen and rain is pouring. I had such a fun time tonight experiencing that with great people, and I will carry memories of this evening with me always.

My day at the clinic was jam-packed today, too. I love days when a million things are going on, because I am easily bored and enjoy a good amount of variety. I saw a necropsy on a pink-toed tarantula, which will probably evolve into nightmares for me tonight...we vaccinated a baby kudu with a blow dart. Basically, you have a long tube in which you place a double ended syringe. In one end goes the medicine for the animal, and in the other end is air to charge the dart. Someone blows into the long tube and the dart goes flying out into the animal. It is a bit shocking, but no more painful than a strong bug bite. We checked on the little pintail duckling who had his leg pinned the other day, and he seems to be doing great. He's putting weight on that foot again and happily swimming with his buddies. Another thing we did today was to check those quarantined fish I mentioned above for parasites. For such a test, we did what is called a gill clip. Some people will just euthanize fish willy nilly for the sake of such tests, but it is not a necessary measure, and we chose to do a test in which no life would be lost. A small sliver of gill flesh is taken from the fish, a wound that will heal easily on its own, and the gill is then looked at under a microscope. If parasites are present, they will be viewed under the microscope. The fish from today had smooth, clean gill muscles, and no parasites, which in turn allowed them to be okay for transfer. Several frogs, two birds, and a snake were taken care of today, but I fear I am too exhausted to expound upon the topic at this time.