A thief came to my blog and stole...

I just learned that two of my designs, both original cards created with handmade flowers, were stolen by a person under the pseudonym Melissa 1986 and added to a challenge on www.cardmakingandpapercraft.com/challenge/spring-flower-cardmaking-challenge as her own creations.

These are the designs this person stole:

What an outrageous thing to do!  It is one thing if somebody semi recreates a design as long as credit is given to the original designer, but to steal it and submit it to challenges in hopes to win is an entirely different crime.  

I hope this person is red flagged and possibly caught and punished for doing such a rotten thing.  

Thank you, "playingwithpaper", for writing to me about this rotten deed.  I really, truly appreciate it!  

I would like to hear from others if this has happened to them and/or what can be done about that.  I have subscribed to that site and added my comments about the thefts, hopefully the challenge moderators will do the responsible thing and act immediately.  

This Melissa 1986 looked at the post where these cards are displayed on 21 March 2014, the same day she entered them in the challenge.  My visitor counter says she is from  Toledo, Ohio.  Please watch for such a visitor on your own blogs!  

Crafting, oh yes!

In case you're curious as to what I have been up to lately, this is just a glimpse.  My back went out just before Christmas and remained a problem, so I had to figure out what to do while more or less resting to let it heal.  Making baby booties was the answer, among other things.  

Then came the question what next, and here is a start.  Take a look at the video I posted.  More to come soon, lots of ideas are filling my head, if only my body would listen and let me do what I want again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etwOUpjhC0Y&list=UUbhuZUCn3c9vU_Lv5fsk08A

As always, I welcome any and all feedback.

Wishing you a wonderful rest of the week,

Sigi

A little bit Wildlife Rehabilitation once again...

I want to share a video I created with you all.  Hopefully you'll watch it even though it has nothing to do with crafting.  I am still doing that, too, of course, but this was important to make and I am really not good with video programs...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siArl96QqHA

Overwintering Big Brown Bats

With the White Nose Syndrome killing off our cave hibernating bats at a hugely alarming rate, with a 90% mortality rate in infected caves and spreading across the continent like wildlfire, it is of utmost importance that we save every last bat we can.  And with the death of my good friend and mentor Fran, the director of our association which may now also coming to its end, a huge gap has been created since she always took in bats.  Many rehabbers do not.  I am one of the few who happens to adore bats, I always have.  So now I will have to crash-course learn all I can about bats, with one skilled bat rehabber nearly three hours away but willing to help me learn as much as she can long distance.

My current count of overwintering, semi-hibernating bats is three, and all are big brown bats.  Their colors vary, two are a more dark chocolate brown, while one is milk chocolate colored.  In the pictures I am holding the little milk chocolate bat, which at first wasn't thrilled and made a lot of buzzing sounds but quickly calmed down in my glove once it realized I was no threat.  Bats are highly intelligent and have a good memory, and they are quick learners.

Defensive bat.  Note how they push themselves up on their knuckles.  The tiny claws help them grab their prey in flight and aid with climbing.  

The fleece on the left is hung so the bats can cling to it when sleeping.  

 Slightly defensive bat.  Note that I am using gloves.  NEVER touch a bat without a glove or cloth, you doom the animal if you do to certain death since human health comes first.  The only way to test a bat for rabies, or any animal for that matter, is to cut its head off and examine the brain for characteristic telltale lesions.  Over 90% of examined bats proved to be healthy, but they had to be sacrificed to protect human life.  

My little bat, now calm in my gloved hand.  Had he not been awake I would not have disturbed him.  









Bats are incredibly beneficial little flying insect eating machines who can eat half their body weight in a single night. That means hundreds of mosquitoes less to transmit deadly diseases per night per bat!  When a bat buzzes close to your head it isn't out to get you, it is after the mosquitoes that are about to bite you.  Bats can navigate hundreds of fine criss-cross wires in a pitch black room without touching a single one, so this nonsense about bats getting entangled in people's hair is just that:  nonsense.

If a bat is trapped in your house for some reason, turn off the lights, open the windows, and help it find its way out.  If it falls on the ground, take a soft cloth, pick it up gently and place it into a tree.  And if you find a hibernating bat in your house and feel that it might get trapped come spring, find a wildlife rehabilitator who takes bats first or contact www.batworld.org for guidance before you GENTLY and CAREFULLY pluck the torpid animal from its perch.  (If you're close to me, you call me, of course...  )  You don't want to damage any of the delicate toes.  Bats hang upside down when they sleep, and they make a buzzing sound when disturbed, similar to an angry bumble bee.  A bat that has been disturbed in hibernation will shiver to get its body temperature up to functioning levels, and that depletes much needed energy reserves meant to help the animal survive in deep sleep until spring.  That is why I let mine semi awaken, they have live, well fed mealworms and fresh water at their disposal.

www.Batworld.org is a wonderful source for more information on these tiny flying mammals.  I hope you take the time and learn more about these amazing animals most of us know so little about.

Valentine, Valentino, Love Day...

After just writing a reply to Bibiana's comment on my last post, A Tribute to Popeye, it is time for something a bit more light-hearted.  February, while it still seems an eternity away, is right around the corner, and with it the sometimes dreaded pink and red colored Valentine's Day.

Well, I chose mainly purples and lavender and peach instead!  For good measure I made a few red and pink ones as well.  Flip cards are all the craze lately, and some new Sizzix dies have multi flips and cost a bundle.  I went back to the drawing board and made my flip cards with regular dies.  Not hard to do, but you have to be precise and be careful not to cut that center section.  There are lots of "how to" videos out on YouTube, but choose older ones, they don't use the new dies.  Making your own allows for the freedom of different size cards, whereas the dies confine you to "one size fits all".

I put them all on Etsy already, so it's about time I show them here as well.

Left is the closed card,                    right the open card.  Some are three paneled.

The fronts are decorated with specialty glitter card stock ornate hearts, and the glossy dimensional heart in the purple card I made myself.

Then I thought, who says Valentine's has to be red and pink? and made some green ones...

I glazed the frogs to make them look wet and slippery.  Aren't those "Frog Amore" cards the cutest?

A tribute to Popeye

Wildlife rehabilitation is often portrayed as holding cute little wild animals in one's hands and giving them formula as they suckle greedily.  A picture of utter peace and happiness.  The problem with that is that all too often such rosy pictures are not the reality.  Wildlife rehabilitation is one of the toughest and heart wrenching jobs one can take on, and one has to be ready for that and grow nerves of steel.  Firefighters do it, ER personnel do it, and wildlife rehabilitators have to do it.  The difference is that we do it without any pay.

I didn't want to write this story until the person who brought me Popeye knew about it.  Now she does, she is okay with it, so here it is.

Popeye arrived on 29 August 2013 around 7:30pm.  All I knew was that he was a baby squirrel about 7-8 weeks old "with an infected eye", but I had a suspicion that maggots might be the culprits.  Late summer we deal with lots of parasites, and they can be deadly if not dealt with immediately.  When I saw the squirrel I left the bringers standing on the porch and raced in the kitchen with the little guy in my hands.  It was the worst maggot infestation in an eye ball I had ever seen.  There were over 100 maggots wriggling and crawling in and out of the destroyed eye ball, it was a bloody mess.  The baby was in agony and I needed to act fast.  Warm distilled water in a flushing syringe which I had to refill over and over was the first line of defense, and the maggots were just dripping out in clumps.  Once I got a better view into the eye socket I realized that the maggots had already eaten their way through the tear duct into the sinus cavity.  From there they would chew their way into the brain...

The baby was too exhausted to move around much, and I was able to fill the now hollow eye socket with water until the maggots started to come up out of the sinus cavity for air.  Once out far enough I was able to grab them with fine tip tweezers and quickly yank them out, one at a time, dozens in all.  In between I took a break and spoke with the finders who were hovering on the porch despite my husband talking with them.  I didn't let them watch because I knew they wouldn't be able to handle what I had to do.  I was fighting for the baby's life, but I also had to now pay attention to the woman who was falling apart crying.  She had had the baby for nearly two days already and now felt terribly guilty, and I had to calm her down and explain to her that most people don't know about maggots and the devastation they can cause on orphaned and debilitated wildlife.

All in all I worked on the baby for well over two hours until the final maggot was out at last.  The baby was exhausted but alive, I gave him a dose of CAP Star and pain meds, and within an hour he drank lots of fluids and eventually diluted formula.


Left:  Popeye shortly after the last maggot had been removed.


Right:  Popeye snuggling in with his new nest mates.  He is the one in the front facing left.

Popeye continued to thrive and did well with his nest mates.  But the big question remained:  would he be able to adapt to just one eye?  How would he gauge distance and jumps without falling?  He was fine in the small indoor cage, but the test would come in the large and high outdoor cage.

 Popeye with his nest mates in the indoor cage.  He behaved perfectly normal but was a bit of a bully, possibly because he was afraid he might miss out if he didn't muscle his way into everything.  

The first three weeks in the outside cage he did fine, but I noticed that he wasn't even trying to jump.  He just climbed about the wire, and I needed to observe him jumping before I could even consider opening the cage for release of the group.

And then it happened.  I found him turning in circles at the bottom of the cage, disoriented, he must have taken a bad fall.  Popeye had been very independent until then and was untouchable, but he let me pick him up and put him in the carrier without a fight.  With a heavy heart I called the vet and asked if I could bring him in.  We didn't have to wait, we could come right away.

Last picture of Popeye on 10-30-13, two days before his accident on 11-1-13, happily eating a chestnut in the outside cage.  






Popeye was gently euthanized.  I remained by his side until he was gone.  Afterwards we talked, and the vet agreed that a squirrel with one eye will never be a candidate for release.  Yet sometimes animals adapt to the most incredible handicaps and do fine, that was the reason that I gave him a chance.  I have had squirrels with bitten-off tails that did well out in the wild, survived severe winters, and even raised babies.  But a one-eyed squirrel clearly is not able to adapt to its handicap.

Popeye had a happy childhood and was full of life until it came to a sudden end.  I am not sorry that I gave him a chance.  Deep down I knew that he couldn't be released, that is why I took my time with his entire group.  His nest mates now run around all over the back yard, and come spring many will disburse since they are mostly boys.

I decided to publish his story for two reasons:  as an educational tool, and also to  illustrate how an animal simply accepts what is, without whining, without feeling sorry for itself.  Had it not been for the maggots destroying his eye ball Popeye would have been a perfectly healthy and normal squirrel.  Yet he made the best of what he had, and he lived his short life to the fullest.

And that will always be his legacy...

New Year's Eve Wishes

As 2013 draws to a close, I can't help but wonder what the next year may bring.  What wildlife will show up at my door?  Will finders be a bit more generous and help me out with enough donations to cover the costs, or will I once again have to dig deep and face yet another meager Christmas and money woes?  My back is killing me, and the chiropractor says I need twice weekly adjustments for the next six weeks, but I had to cancel the current appointments because I can't afford paying $90 a week for the next six weeks.  His rate is cheaper than my co-payment per insurance, which renders our insurance useless in this aspect.  I will have to tough it out until tax refund time, but it looks bleak there as well because bills are piling up and I have no funds left to cover them.

I mailed out over 70 handmade cards to people who had brought me animals in the past.  In 2012 I did not send out a "begging letter" because my hands were too compromised from Carpal tunnel inflammation which required surgery on both hands in January this year.  So I included a 2-year update on the more memorable animals I had received during the last two years.  -  I received four responses thus far, one was a mere "good to hear from you".  Right now I can raise 6 -7 squirrels with the donations I received.  I am so very grateful to the donors, but I am still thousands short to cover the onslaught of 2014.  Just once would I like to be able to use our tax refund for much needed home repairs or other things, not dump everything into raising wildlife because so many animals arrive with insufficient or no donations at all.

Are wildlife rehabilitators a dying breed?  Most people think we are crazy to work for nothing, to put so much time and money into helping wildlife.  Yes, I agree, a vacation would be nice, although I don't even know what that is.  We haven't had one in 14 years, the season starts anytime from March/early April and lasts into November.  Since I always end up with overwinterers I work 365 days a year.  My only days "off" have been when I had surgeries and had to stay in the hospital for a night or two, then my husband took over the feedings.  But I was back cleaning cages either on crutches or with bandaged hands and plastic bags over them to protect against fecal contamination the day I got back home.  Wildlife is different from domestic animals in that they do not accept a strange person and go crazy and potentially injure themselves in the cage if their flight or fight response is ignored.  So even with the worst back or neck pain, headaches, or colds I still have to take care of them.  That is just the way it is.  I wish we had a new generation that takes this work seriously, but young people want to make money and have weekends off and have fun and not clean poop out of cages instead.

I see all these new housing developments rip into woods and create deep gashes where once wildlife carved out a living.  Often city folks don't know anything about wildlife and are shocked and afraid if a displaced animal tries to re-occupy a part of their property because it has no place else to go.  They lash out without thinking, often killing a mother and leaving her young to die without realizing what they have done.  I wish people would be kinder and more understanding to the wildlife that surrounds us.  That doesn't mean feeding them, it means letting them live in peace and not destroying their habitat.  How much groomed lawn do you really need?  And all those weed killers, do you ever read the warning labels?  When cities spray for mosquitoes and tell people to close their windows, do any of you ever think what this poison does to exposed birds and beneficial insects and mammals that can't get away from it?

That old oak tree that drops thousands of acorns onto your driveway, please think THRICE before you decide to take it down.  That oak is probably well over 100 years old and took over 50 years to mature before it first produced acorns.    Acorns are a vital food for a myriad of wildlife, and the tree itself produces oxygen and shade.  Picture the emptiness without this tree and then decide against it.  Don't throw the acorns in the trash, put them alongside the edges of your property, where bushes and trees grow, so wildlife can get them and make it through another winter.

I hope that my blog will help you learn about the wildlife that surrounds us and shows you that, aside being vitally important to the ecology of the land, they all have their own personalities and experience grief and pain just the same.  The difference is that they have to fend for themselves, and if sick or injured, often directly due to human activity, they have nobody to take care of them.  The reason so many adults end up dying is that we usually don't get them until they are so sick that they can't run anymore.  Orphans are another matter, without human intervention they would definitely perish.  Raising them so they remain wild and succeed upon release is not an easy thing to do.  Many people have told me that they have raised a baby squirrel, and to this day you see videos and pictures on the internet where baby squirrels and dogs or cats snuggle and look soooooo cute.  A responsible wildlife rehabilitator would NEVER expose a wild animal to either of those two predators because keeping their instinctual fear intact is vital to their survival later on.

Wildlife is not destined to ever become anybody's pet.  It sickens me to see "pet" squirrels paraded across FB pages, often these are disabled and deeply depressed animals that can't get away from their captors.  I am weeding out such people from my friends list, I don't want to see such suffering which unfortunately is not illegal in some states.

PLEASE put away your cell phone while driving, especially during dusk and dawn.  Many animals emerge and attempt to cross roads right before or right after darkness falls, and if your eyes are not focused on the sides of the road where you can pick up the reflection in their eyes and react before it is too late you will either maim or kill an animal or get maimed and killed yourself.

Lastly, if you must drink, don't drive.  Or stick to healthy drinks such as milk.  You'll look a lot cuter with a milk beard and won't suffer from a hangover into 2014.  Take a look!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!