Back to Work

I've been back at work for two half-days and I can't believe how much pain I'm NOT in!  I'm working half-days all this week to make my transition a little easier.  I "think" that my doctor will release me to work full days next week, but I am not going to make that prediction.  It has been wonderful to be back with my animals.  The biggest tiger cub was (I think) 37 pounds the last day I worked before my surgery.  I don't know his exact weight today, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was around 100 pounds.  The cubs are still super-cute, but they are about half the size of adults.  They all four play together, but it seems like the two boys stick together most of the time.  They like to play rough.  Mama tiger Kyra has a lot more time to herself now- the cubs no longer cling to her every second.  I was also happy to start working with the takin, emus and muntjac again and didn't realize how much I missed them. 

I stretch my feet and legs for 15 minutes before work and 45 minutes after work and before bed.  I still do my ridiculous routine of picking up marbles with my toes, rolling a golf ball under my feet and stretching on the floor with a towel.  I have also added two spiky half balls that massage my feet while stretching my feet and calves.  They can be very painful, but have been working nicely.  They can be used sitting down and I plan to use them at lunch when I start working full time.

Today is the kids' final day of winter vacation.  They both left to go play with neighbor kids pretty much the second I walked through the door.  Gene's schedule changed enough that I will now be taking Logan to "morning latchkey" at his school.  He's a little disappointed, but he understands that it will be very hard for Gene or me to come back home if he misses the bus or the bus doesn't come.  Logan is really responsible and I can't imagine he would EVER miss the bus because he got caught up watching TV or dawdling, but he has substitute bus drivers constantly and the possibility of the bus coming early or very late or skipping him is too great.  I will feel much more comfortable dropping him off at school and it's only for a semester.  Next school year will be a golden year that both kids are at the same school.  Yippee! 

Logan and I had an amazing week of owling last week.  We saw the great horned owl on New Year's Eve and then saw a barred owl and another great horned owl and heard a screech owl on New Year's Day.  We saw another barred owl on Friday.  We also found the goose migration at Lake Chautauqua.  There were thousands (probably tens of thousands) of snow geese, greater white-fronted geese and Canada geese.  The snow geese were doing their thing where they rise up in a giant cloud.  We also found mute, tundra and trumpeter swans and a giant migration of red-winged blackbirds that looked like a river flying over us.  We had  35 species for the first day of the year.  It was a fun trip because every bird was a year bird.  Raptors were everywhere and we counted 32 red-tailed hawks, 6 kestrels, 1 Cooper's hawk, 8 northern harriers and I can't remember how many bald eagles, but they out-numbered the red-tailed hawks.  It was a great day of birding and our best ever week of owling.