Going Bananas

Forever, I’ve been trying to find a grocery store that would donate greens. Vegetables and fruit are the only thing that I have never been able to get donated. I’ve had a couple one time donations, but nothing that I could make work on a regular basis. I spend a small fortune on vegetables, mostly greens and a little fruit every week. Tortoises, iguanas, bearded dragons, blue tongue skinks and other animals eat veggies and small of them eat fruit. Fruit isn’t recommended in certain tortoises, but mostly they all eat the same salad.

One day, I received a call from the Maryland Food Bank. Every grocery store that I talked to about donations, told me that they couldn’t donate to us because they sent stuff to the Maryland Food Bank. I found out that they mostly lied. I suppose the reason is that they are afraid a person will eat the food and get sick (then WHY would they give it to the Food Bank?).

The Maryland Food Bank had a donation of a truckload of organic bananas, which were already yellow. They told me that they rarely get perishable food, mostly they get donations of canned goods, boxed food or jars. That’s where the lie from the local food stores came into play. The only one that admitted they throw food away was Whole Foods. They said that any food that is past its prime goes right into the dumpster. They are not allowed to give it away. I asked, “Are you saying I can get it out of the dumpster?”

“NOOOOO!” Yelled the produce manager. “We don’t give it away.”

That’s such a shame because I wouldn’t mind cutting off the bad spots and using whatever is left over for the animals. But, that was never meant to be.

Normals, as I call them, or people who don’t have reptiles, don’t always understand when I would ask for help for the reptiles. I would say “reptile,” they would think “rattlesnake.” I was always careful to ask for food to “help the tortoises,” or “feed the iguanas.” I tried to avoid the word “reptile.” It just has a bad connotation for some reason.

Back to the Maryland Food Bank… They called with a “bunch” of bananas. (Get it? Bunch of bananas?) I had a Ford Taurus station wagon at the time. They told me it wasn’t going to be big enough.

Here’s the deal. I only had a couple parrots that would eat a small piece of fruit as a treat, and some iguanas that eat about fruit for about 5% of their diet. That meant I could basically use a bunch of bananas.

Finding the Maryland Food Bank was tricky. It was nestled in a not-so-great neighborhood and it took a couple passes with angry drivers honking at me, to figure out exactly where it was. Eventually though, I found it. I got a brief tour of the facility and met some people. They were all very nice to me, unlike the grocery store people.

Somehow I ended up loading my car completely with cases of bananas. I could barely see to drive with bananas blocking every mirror in the car. They were stacked up on the seat next to me, my purse wedged in between the cases and me. The smell wafting from them was almost sickening sweet. Fruit flies came along with the donation and I’m sure the Maryland Food Bank was happy to get rid of them!

As soon as I got home I was on the phone with everyone I knew, trying to find people to take bananas.

My friend Laurie had just gotten a pot bellied pig, I gave her three cases. Of course, she too, only needed a bunch or two.

I called my friend Vicky, at what was then the Reptile House at that Baltimore Zoo. I asked if maybe the bears or other animals would like some nice organic yellow bananas. Nope.

All of my friends came over and took a few bunches. That left me with only about 15 CASES of bananas! Needless to say, a lot of them ended up in the compost. I peeled and froze a lot of them, although I got so sick of bananas I couldn’t bear to eat them for about a year after this happened.

I didn’t want to offend the Maryland Food Bank and I definitely wanted to be on their good side so I could get more produce if they ever got it. I never, ever heard from them again! And the banana debacle went down in history as one of the most fantastic food donation situations ever.

Production Reptiles

My friend Charles, runs Production Reptiles. He's got high quality animals and I'm trying to help him out. I set up a website for him and also a facebook page, so check him out!
He sells gorgeous rainbow boas, morphs of sand boas, ball pythons and a lot of other stuff.
Here are is ball python morph.

Mmmmmm.... glove!

I had to give a talk at 9:30 this morning at the St. Paul School. I do this every year on the last day of school. The kids don't want to do any work on the last day so I help entertain them.
I went to get the Dumeril's boa (AKA demerol boa) out of the cage. I didn't feel like messing around for 10 minutes with a hook because it's bitey, so I put on my big gloves and just grabbed it, but not before it tried to grab me! Instead it grabbed the glove. It had me wrapped so tightly that I couldn't get the glove off. 
It didn't hurt, I just couldn't get my hand out of the glove. Finally, I was able scrunch my hand up and pull it out of the glove after several minutes of wrestling. 
I was now running late, so I had to leave it, just hoping it wouldn't swallow that glove like the dummy it is. Meanwhile, I wasted at least five minutes of precious animal-packing time.
I got everything in the car and took off. I got stuck in traffic -- and I was not even on the highway. I sat there for a good 15 minutes (I would have had 15 minutes to unload my car, etc. at the school).
I got there, unpacked just as the kids were getting there. I think I had about 15 seconds to spare.
Using all of that adrenaline is exhausting!
It is now four and a half hours later. The snake is still wrapped around that glove, but thankfully, not swallowing it. Every time I make a move to get it, the snake coils tighter around the glove.
Just another day in the asylum.

Black throat monitor

Rescues get sickly animals all of the time, but we rarely get ones with extra hole in their faces. We recently received a black throat monitor from a nearby shelter with a fistula, or a hole, in its face. Fortunately for us, it has already healed, but left a permanent reminder about how a simple infection can destroy your animal's face.

The white spot on his face is where the hole is. Sorry for the poor quality photo, it was taken with a cell phone. It looks like he has a nostril in the middle of his face, but it is actually a lot bigger and wider than his real nostril.

This animal came to us emaciated and vomiting. In just a couple weeks of keeping him warm and feeding him the appropriate sized food items and he's good to go. He still needs to put on a lot of weight, but he has an adopter coming to check him out tomorrow. Hopefully she will fall in love with this slightly damaged animal.