July 15th

Today was kinda crazy, as it turns out. I had completely forgotten that I had volunteer training for my wildlife hospital work, and then I was only able to submit my paperwork yesterday so I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to attend. That plus already not being able to sleep meant I stayed up very late. Then my paperwork and fee got processed super early in the morning, which meant I was able to go! However, it also meant that I ended up getting no sleep beforehand! Literally, didn't sleep this morning. It was a tired day, but I dragged my ass there and it was absolutely worth it. I was definitely fading near the end (and I slept for six hours when I got home) but meeting animals and getting to know the facility was great. I've done similar work, but just with baby and juvenile songbirds, so I am super excited to not only be able to work with bigger birds like owls and hawks, but also waterfowl, mammals, and reptiles! (And if I want to shell out a bunch of money, I can work with the rabies vector animals...though I don't think I'll be doing that. Raccoons are amazing but they carry plenty of other stuff besides potentially rabies, and bats...bats actually do get rabies more often than I care to think about. Not super often, but even one confirmed case a year is kinda freaky.)

So that's that! I'm officially a volunteer again!