December 25, 2025

My initial thoughts are different than in past years:

• I first notice the sounds: it’s silent as I pull into the parking lot dark and early in the day. As I walk inside, the first sounds are the pumps and filters on the turtle tanks, followed by only the cooing of the mourning doves in Carolina Wildlife. It’s quite lovely.
• There are very few veterinary treatments — the least amount we’ve had in years.
• I’m also able to walk and bend much easier this year. I have two new knees. 2025 has been the year of surgeries and recoveries, but it makes working today much easier than previous years.

This will be my sixth year working with Nicole by my side. She’s one of the best there is — she knows everything and moves quickly. We game-planned earlier in the week on how we would work the day. We divided the indoor areas and worked rather efficiently.

With Volunteer Joyce’s arrival at 8 am, we were in great shape. Volunteer Joyce is tried and true — on holidays and every day she’s here. I was able to stay dry because Joyce does the dishes today!

Joyce and Nicole went to the Farmyard and knocked out that rather easily. With the rain having stopped by 8:30 am and the weather being rather mild, there was nothing that took much extra effort.

With the Farmyard being taken care of, I moved north into Explore the Wild. I caught glimpses of both Murray and Little Bear in the distance on the cliff. My photo of Little is not worth sharing but check out Muray lounging high on the cliff face near the waterfall.

Red Wolves Jacques and Carolina were also positioned high on their cliff — it was easy to spot them both. It’s now been two years at Lemurs using the long-handled dustpan to clean up the yard — makes life much easier, so there were no issues there.

This year’s challenges were minimal, unexpected, and slowed me down just a bit:

• My glasses kept falling off whenever I bent down. First in the rabbit food bowl. Then, tortoises, and quite frankly, everywhere else I bent down.
• Radiated tortoises make giant poops. I already knew that, but when your glasses keep falling off and you’ve got male tortoise #16 “chasing” after you, cleaning up becomes a bit of a minefield.

• Getting rabbit fur off the laser, after treatment, takes a really long time! It doesn’t matter whether you use a damp cloth, or a dry cloth, the fur seems to settle back on the laser. (Not the most attractive photo, but it was safely taken during the treatment.)

We’re in great shape, and the end of the day hopes to be smooth sailing.

Hope everyone’s Christmas day is as they want it to be!