Today was a pretty good day in some ways and pretty damn rough in others. I have been "funemployed" for over a year and taking good advantage of it to build and sell a few bows. I've never been without work for very long since I was about 18, and have rarely taken vacations. I'm due. Nuff said.
Today I started a temp job for a friend that is the Exec. Director of a Raptor Rehabilitation and Wildlife Education Center here in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Up til now I have been doing all the volunteer work I could get, but now they've made it official since they are so short handed. I had fun cleaning up falcon, hawk, owl, and eagle poop in the mews. I picked up, identified, weighed, and disposed of the various rat, rabbit, quail, chicken, mouse parts left over from the various raptors overnite meals. I got to chop up more rats, mice, rabbits, quail, chickens, and stuff for feeding them today's rations. That was fun, too, in it's strange little way.
But then a South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks Conservation Officer dropped in unnanounced with a large dog crate in his truck. Inside was a juvenile golden eagle. The bird was found in Custer State Park and was in tough shape. Julia, the amazing young woman that was training me on how to clean up bird poop, did a down and dirty quick examination of the seriously stressed bird. Badly broken wing - death sentence. He'd never fly again, ever. Even with extreme effort and great amounts of scarce dollars, this wild bird's best possible scenario would be a cripple, forever staring at the skies he would be denied.
Here was this awe inspiring, winged death dealer wrapped in a bath towel cradled gently in her arms. He was physically broken, but the look in that bird's eyes said nothing about surrender. His end was quick, humane, and painless. I am very humbled by this experience. There was an additional softness in her voice when she took me back to the weathering mews to continue where we had left off.
