A Squirrel’s Tale Wildlife Rehabilitation, Inc.

“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”
(St. Francis of Assisi)
  
I don’t know about you, but recent events have left me alternating between worried feelings of helplessness and deep anger.  To watch the financial sector meltdown, a real-life, grotesque, McArthur’s park cake left out in the rain, followed by weasel word excuses of [...]

“How far that little candle throws its beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
(William Shakespeare)
  
There isn’t anything that’s a whole lot better than a baby squirrel.  Even after years of raising them, their development continues to fascinate me. 
Despite this year’s sabbatical, we have 9 orphans in residence, each one growing like the proverbial weed.  [...]

“The fundamental issue is the moral issue. ”
(David Attenborough) 
  
When I started working as a wildlife rehabilitator it was harder than it is now to make contact with other, more experienced professionals since that most handy and valuable tool, the internet, was not yet a household item.  This was particularly true for those of us here in Michigan [...]

   
“There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval.”
(George Santayana)
   
Just over 2 months ago, I received a frantic call from a friend of my mother.  Apparently she’d spotted a cat tangling with a squirrel in her backyard, but the squirrel was unable to get up the tree when she scared away [...]

“You do not see the river of mourning because it lacks one tear of your own.”
(Antonio Porchia)
 
Wildlife rehabilitation is rather seasonal work, and when its pace picks up, combined with an average, oft-intense 60-hour week day job, the days and nights begin to fly by so fast my head spins.  This was one of those weeks.  [...]

Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.”
(Oscar Wilde)
 
Nine years ago today I found a baby squirrel.  She came into my life unexpectedly, laying immediate and eternal claim to my heart, tasking me to labor with Love without a single regret on this path of selfless service.  And that path has led me places and [...]

“It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”
(Charles Baudelaire)
 
It’s been a long week.  The pace at work has quickened again and I found my Self driving into the office several times.  Not that driving into [...]

“Love never reasons, but profusely gives; it gives like a thoughtless prodigal its all, and then trembles lest it has done too little.”
(Hannah More)
 
 Growing up and staking your claim on the world is a process, yet as unique in its manifestation as the individuals who follow it.  Sometimes short, other times interminably long and drawn-out, there is [...]

“Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid. ”
(Dean Koontz)
 
People being who they are, I fear this could be a running series, but today’s thought is concerned with the idea of nature preserves.   In order to be sure of my definitions, I went and looked up the [...]