Lions & Tigers & Binturons, OH MY

So, yesterday, Wifey (not LITERALLY my wife, peeps!) & I went to volunteer at the carnivore conservators center, in Mebane NC... I was extremely intimidated by the thought of this, but had my arm twisted until I agreed...

When we first turned off the main road, there was this gorgeous lake and a blue heron flew in front of us and landed by the lakeside.. I managed to capture several "perfect blue heron" pictures before we had to drive away.

Then, we turned off the road into this non-descript gravel driveway, where we had to capture a picture in case we were never heard from again. We continue down this gravel drive, and come up on this green fencing... Inside the fencing, you can actually SEE the lions! It was CRAZY!!

So we went up and met the people, and Janine, who would be our instructor for the days adventures. I am happy to say that we arrived BEFORE Molly, who is an intern that helps. So, Wifey and I got to first feed the Chausies (read between the lines here:B-O-R-I-N-G) and I was slightly concerned that we'd only get to help with the "tame" animals. Then we got to hand feed some servals, which was definitely deserving of respect...and then I gave the lynx some chicken..Here he was, lounging on the side of his enclosure, looking all demure and sweet, and I reach out (while speaking in a cute kitty voice) to hand him his chicken, and it hissed at me (exposing close to 1000 green canine looking teeth), causing me to immediately express my anal glands. I bet I jumped 3 feet.

So, speed through, we fed some singing dogs (one did a beautiful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner) and some wolves, cleaned up some tiger poop and maggoty chicken (actually, wifey got the maggoty chicken) fed them some more chickens and broke for lunch....

~*~

Before we went into the place, we decided we'd stop at Sonic and grab some food for lunch time. Both of us got some variety of grilled chicken. We also saw something very strange on the sonic drive thur window... Anybody know what it is??

After dealing with disgusting chickens, we both were completely traumatized with the slimy grilled chicken inside our Sonic food...Little did WE know that the worst was yet to come...

Ok, so after lunch, we head back to the field kitchen, and Janine tells us that her and Molly would be travelling on a chicken run for tomorrows chickens, and would WE mind chopping 40 chickens up... No, of course not, wifey tells her! Ok, so we have to check bin after bin of chicken butt looking for green buttholes (green means bad), once we've accomplished this, she says OK, now you can chop em up. First cut off their legs, then their wings about "here" and then if their heads are discolored, chop those off too.. She gives us a variety of axes and sends us on our way... Let me just tell you...at first, we both were completely traumatized, but pretty soon, we were laughing hysterically (and probably a little manically as well) at the poor chickens... until wifey got some chicken gut on her arm... I almost peed myself..her face..priceless. Then we got to take our 40 chickens and feed em to the LIONS!! At this point, Wifey was so enraptured I had to almost drag her along...and there were 5 lions in this one enclosure, which was about 3 feet from the Tigers enclosure.. Apprently, the lion brothers pick on him or somethin cause the tiger was trying to eat the lions (except, it looked alot like he was trying to eat US and it was extremely scary)...

Then, cause im retarded, my chicken got stuck on the top of the lion enclosure and the lion nearly climbed the fence... I almost vomited... I was convinced that I would be the reason the lion escaped...and I was very glad to have done surgery with the surgeon on sunday (after doing THAT, you can wrestle a lion, no problems) so that I might capture him. Its kinda vague but im pretty sure the whole time Im panicking, wifey is saying very calming things to me... Its most of the reason I keep her around :) So I threw the 2nd chicken to distract him and THAT chicken almost lands in the SAME spot... I think wifey almost vomited that time, and I had my eyes squeezed shut... ive never been so happy to hear a dead chicken hit the ground in my entire life...

Then, after I embarrassed us, and tried to get the lion to escape, we were finished... Except wifey got to hand feed a tiger... (If MOLLY could do it, so could she! only I had to convince her to NOT try it with her mouth)... We played with the serval babies (do you imagine little squirmy kittens when i say this? Cause I sure was) for a while and headed home... Ate some dinner (chicken, mind you) and then i PASSED out... All in a days work :)

The squirmy little serval babies!