A quick look back on the past few days, as well as forward to the next few days:

I am sure everyone’s stress level is, at minimum, a bit higher than normal. Package delivery was one of the items a few weeks ago that totally pushed my buttons. (I have since calmed down, but let me just say it wasn’t pretty at all, especially when one truck arrived, backed up to the loading dock, opened the cargo bay, and it was empty). There have been three lost items that were ordered in February that finally made it in last week.

The large box below is heavy duty “toys” for some of our larger critters. The driver of this delivery truck was not comfortable backing to our loading dock, and given social distancing, I was not comfortable getting groups of people to offload the box. Since I knew the items in the box were designed to stand up to bears and such, I suggested he just push the box off the truck– I even said I would sign for it first 🙂

Besides missing packages arriving, we’ve also received hand-sewn masks from several amazing friends of the Museum. Current and former staff and friends, as well as Sonali Sethi, of perSONALIty LLC, have been making masks for us. Chris and Kate are modeling Sonali’s masks below.

We continue to train our helpers from other Museum Teams on Animal Care Tasks. Jordan, from Retail Ops, is a valued member of our “Sunday” team. She’s been getting the bearded dragons out to sun, learning how to handle and clean the homes of our animals typically used for education programs, and even helped with our alligators last week.

We also started a snake on some antibiotics for a skin infection. Any idea which snake this is below?

I (we) are preparing for another very busy week. We’ve got a large delivery of hay bales coming the end of the week. Also, the alpacas are scheduled to get sheared on Thursday. Alpaca shearing almost always occurs in April, and this year is no different.

Remember, take care of yourself-– for yourself, those in your life who are important to you, and for others. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Maintain your 6-foot social distance.

And, a reminder to find something that makes you smile. For me, today, I walked by Florian’s home as he was eating. I got a double treat. First, seeing the bowl full of balls in with Florian’s food, and second, when he stopped eating and turned to look at me.