Little Things for Which I am Thankful: Weekend Edition!

I’m not going to put this in list order like I usually do, because, well, I’m just not in the mood and I feel like sometimes that breaks up the flow of my thoughts.

I have had a great weekend so far! Yesterday started out bright and early, about 5:30. I spent the morning with the barn animals at the Animal Rescue League from about 7:40-9:30 a.m. I learned how they take care of the pigs, pigeons, chickens and the outside animals too (goats, sheep, and horse.) And yes, I honestly had no problem dealing with animal poop! Maybe having the herd of my own to look after at home, it doesn’t phase me anymore. (Now, ask me to change a baby’s diaper and the thought terrifies me! LOL). When we were all done, I had about 45 minutes during which I could spend a little time socializing with the animals. This is exactly what it sounds like – getting them to feel more comfortable around humans.

At the shelter in Boston, I’ve seen volunteers bring a book and just sit quietly with the shy cats, and it seems to work. After a while, they get curious and start to draw closer. I had told the shelter manager I would do something like that with the goats and sheep and she thought it was a great idea. So, I did it. And it was funny, after reading a few pages, I would start to hear feet quietly approaching, the sheep in the lead. (They are much braver than the two goats there. A third goat is very friendly but she’s very pregnant so they have moved her inside the barn where she’s under a 24 hour camera watch.)  But then, hunger must have won out because they all went to the trough and started chowing down on hay. 🙂

So, at this point, I thought, why not join them? (No, not to eat hay but just to hang out!) So I very slowly walked over to them. I was told to not approach them confidently and stridently as they are prey animals, and to do that spooks them, so I made sure if I was walking forward, to have my body a bit hunched over, or would walk in a slow gait, backwards. They see out of the periphery of their eyes, just like horses, so if you approach them head on, they can’t see you.

Well, I’m happy to say that both sheep approached me to be petted! (The first day of training, only one did. The other hung back.) The goats were definitely curious as to who I was or what I was doing in their pen. The billy goat is the braver of the two, and I think the girl goat is named Dolly. She was definitely paying attention to me while I talked, as her one ear kept sticking out from her body a bit. It’s my goal to get both goats to feel safe enough around me to let me pet them, eventually. I’m prepared to be patient! Anyway, I felt very grateful that I was allowed to be near these animals, you know, that I was trusted to be near them. And also, a few of the chickens had laid eggs. We are allowed to take them if that is the case, so I had two very tasty farm fresh eggs yesterday morning when I got home! Yummy!

The pig – he’s very smart. Well, he mistook me for a female pig (I think that’s called a sow, right?) A few times I was crouched down while cleaning his pen, and he would jump up and put his front feet on my back. At one point, I was like “hey, dude, whatcha doing there?” The other volunteer was like “oh don’t let him do that, he’s trying to impregnate you!” Which just made me crack up.   Still, he was cute with his little grunts, and at one point, he escaped his pen, but we had the doors to the barn closed, and he was so cute trekking around the place, checking everything out. 🙂

This may sound silly, but when I got home, I was grateful for not having to leave my apartment for the rest of the day if I didn’t want to. It looked like it would be warm by just the air temperature, but the wind made it feel much colder. The first thing I did when I got home was to take a super warm shower so I could get rid of the chills. I spent the rest of the day napping, taking a transcription test (wish me luck that I did well!) and watching netflix – in particular, this show called The 100 (yes, I found out it’s on the CW, so it’s very fitting as that was one of my favorite channels when I had a TV.) I just felt like indulging last night – sitting in warm pajamas, with a few animals around me (like always!) and watching a TV show. I love having nights like that – knowing I have a good roof over my head, and seeing and hearing all my animals sleeping peacefully. (I know, this seems to be a recurring theme with me, doesn’t it?)

I felt such relief to have the transcription test out of the way. They give you ten tries to do it successfully. My file will be reviewed over the next few days, so I’ll know by Thanksgiving if I should take it again or if I can start to do it for pay, for real! I should explain that the relief I felt was because when I had done some of the practice files, there was always a note saying the real test files were much harder. But I didn’t find that to be the case yesterday. I guess you shouldn’t always be so afraid of the unknown, huh? 🙂  Anyway, I am hoping to do the transcription as another way to earn some extra cash, and be able to do it on my own schedule.

This morning, I got up a bit early to get to the gym before it opened and I got to work out and have the entire gym to myself! Now that is an awesome feeling! And the sun is finally out and the temp is supposed to reach into the 50s, wahoo! That alone is cause for celebration in my book. Every cold day that we have had has made my resolve to move someplace warmer within the next 9 months that much stronger. And that’s one thing I am very thankful for this weekend – feeling like I am finally making decisions about my future that are feeling like they are going to stick. Working with animals, it feels right. Now I just have to find a private vet that will allow me to volunteer with them too (my vet is all filled up with volunteer slots until at least January, so at worst, I wait for two months and then try again with them.)

Do you have anything to celebrate or be thankful for this week? Please drop me a line below and let me know!

And as always, if you have liked this post, please hit like or subscribe! Thanks for reading. And of course I can’t end this post without a picture of one of my cuties at home! Callie!