A new blog

I've been doing a bit of Googling this week, looking for information on wildlife caring.

There's plenty of information out there, but there don't seem to be many people blogging about it, so I thought I'd start one.

Now, I could just blog about it here, but if someone finds my blog because they've done a search on wildlife, that's what they want to read. They don't want it interspersed with tales of rectal examinations, or driving a truck. They might not even be that interested when I write about my SCUBA diving course in October (I passed the medical today by the way).

I thought I'd leave this as a personal one and do a knew one just about caring for wildlife. That's not to say I won't have some of the wildlife stuff on here as well though.

If you wan't to have a look, it's called "A Possum in my Pocket" and you can get to it by clicking here. I also have it listed in my sidebar.

Oh, and it will look a lot better when I've had a play with the template.

Wet patch

I knew it couldn't last for long.

I was sitting in an armchair last night watching "House" while Mogwai the possum played under my jacket. I'm not sure what he was trying to do under there, but it seemed like he was trying to burrow into my armpit. At one stage he crawled round the back of me and came out the other side to try the other armpit.

Once House finished and the ads were on during the behind-the-scenes special afterwards, I got up to put Mogwai back in his cage (that's always fun, like trying to get chewing gum out of your hair), when I discovered the back of my pants were wet. He'd done both number one and number two on the seat behind me and it had soaked right through. I can't believe how big the wet patch was.

When I took my clothes off even the tail of my shirt was wet. I ended up watching the last bit of the special in the nude. No point putting clean clothes on just before bed.

Little visitors

We have a few visitors staying with us at the moment while Jess, who is a wildlife carer is away on holidays for a week.

This is Lucky, he's an orphaned brushtail possum. As he's a bit dehydrated at the moment, Donna's bottle feeding him twice a day.



We're looking after two possums. Lucky is only 300g, his little mate Mogwai is even smaller. He's so small in fact that he's sitting in my jacket pocket as I type this.

We also have a couple of reptiles staying with us. You may have seen Willy, the one eyed snake before if you're a regular reader.




Willy was rescued after being attacked by birds. He's about twice the size he was when he was rescued (probably about a metre now).

The other critter is a blue tongue lizard that was rescued from someone who was keeping her illegally as a pet and had over fed her. She's now a lot closer to her correct weight, but is unlikely to ever be returned to the wild as she's too used to humans.

I'll tell you more about our little visitors at a later date, and show you more pics. It's a bit awkward typing with Mogwai in my pocket as I'm afraid I might knock him with my arm. I'm also afraid he might pee in my pocket.

Incidentally, if you're living in the Brisbane area and don't have plans for this Saturday, BARN are having an open day at Willawong animal shelter. Check their website for details under coming events.

Singing for his supper

We've been getting a lot of visits from a group of butcher birds just lately.

We usually give them pieces of raw mince and there are a couple of them that will actually eat out of our hands. One in particular we've nicknamed Gandalf.

Gandalf is a juvenile and therefore he's grey where older birds are usually black, hence the name Gandalf the Grey. Apart from eating out of our hands, he has a habit of sitting on the window ledge and watching us in the kitchen.

Butcher birds are probably one of the best singers of any bird I know. When they get together in a group they can be quite loud, but when one sings alone it can be very pleasant to listen too.

Below is a video I shot of Gandalf just the other day. I'm not sure if he was singing to me so I would feed him, or whether he was singing to another butcher bird sitting in one of our flower pots.



I was going to say, why would you want to keep a bird in a cage when you have this sort of thing in the wild. I'd feel like a hypocrite though, as Sammy the cockatiel is coming back to live with us soon. We're also thinking of becoming carers now that Donna has a bit more time at home, so we may end up with a couple of injured or orphaned birds in cages soon.

Drop your pants and lie on the bed

I had my ultrasound today.

I know a lot of people that have been for ultrasounds. Any woman that has had a baby would have had one, but it turns out a lot of guys have had them too.

Most tell the same story. You drink your litre of water before you leave home, then you sit in the waiting room for ages with your legs crossed and your bum cheeks bouncing up and down on the chair. One guy I know from work actually got up while he was waiting for his and told the receptionist that it wasn't so much a case of when he could pee, but where, and informed her that the flower pot in the corner was starting to look pretty inviting.

I must have been lucky. I was just starting to get to the wriggling stage when my name was called, ten minutes before my appointment time.

I was told to drop my trousers and lie down on the bench, or bed, or table, or whatever that thing is in doctor's surgeries. The doctor then slapped on some lube and started doing the scan.

Now I'd been told this was uncomfortable, mainly because you're lying there with a full bladder and someone is pushing really hard on it. If anything I found it more ticklish than uncomfortable.

Once the initial scan was done, I was told to go and have a pee and to take as long as I needed. This was good as I've gotten into the habit of taking a book in with me whenever I go for a pee. I'm getting through Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series at a rate on one every two days.

So, after peeing as much as I could, I went back into the room and the doctor continued the scan, doing my abdomen again, then my sides. I found the sides more uncomfortable, mainly because they tend to get pretty close into your ribs.

Once that was over I went across the road to a pathology lab for a blood test to check if my prostate is OK and took the opportunity while I was there to use their facilities (have another pee).

Now I know the big grey envelope with the results in has a seal on it saying it's not to be opened by anyone but the referring doctor, but I never take notice of that. I won't tell you what the results were, not until I've discussed them with my doctor, but it doesn't look like there's any kidney stones. The peeing problem will hopefully go away with a different course of antibiotics.

Hopefully, I should now be right to go for my dive medical later this month, in preparation for the course in October.

Tap dancing

I'm going for an ultrasound on Wednesday to check my bladder and kidneys, etc.

The appointment is at 9:30 am, so I have to drink a litre of water between 8:30 and 9:00, then not pee until after the scan. I've never had to do that before, so I thought I'd do a practice run this morning while I worked on a uni assignment.

I started at 9:30 and managed to drink all the water within half an hour. That was the easy bit.

By 10:30 I was starting to feel it, but not too bad. I managed to hold on long enough that the appointment would have, hopefully, been finished. By 10:50 I was starting to wriggle a lot and decided it was time to take a break from the uni assignment and go for a much needed pee.

As I was planning to use the downstairs toilet, (Sarah and her friend were in the room next door to the upstairs one) I had to go through the laundry to get to it. Donna had put a load of clothes on and the washing machine had emptied into the tub as it should. Unfortunately, the plughole in the tub was blocked and the water wasn't draining away. It was less than an inch away from overflowing all over the floor. So, I had to clear the blockage before I could go to the toilet.

I'm just glad no-one was watching me, I'm not very good at tap dancing.

Another trip to the doctor

I paid the doctor another visit yesterday.

It was the same problem as last time, having trouble doing a full pee and feeling constipated. I thought I'd do something about it before I got to the fever stage this time.

I managed to see my regular doctor this time (I'll call her Dr M), she's actually the wife of the doctor I saw last time (Dr R). I was actually booked in to see a different female doctor, but Dr M must have seen my name on the computer and she was free, so she came out and got me. Thankfully I didn't get a finger up the bum this time. Dr M has thinner fingers than her husband, but you should see her nails. Makes your eyes water just thinking about it.

Anyway, I came away with another script for antibiotics and a few referrals for blood tests and ultrasounds, just to make sure my prostate, kidneys and other stuff are okay. My father-in-law had a bladder infection years ago, that was caused by a kidney stone that had created a bit of a blockage. Bladder infections are actually quite uncommon in men apparently.

I'll just be glad when the antibiotics start to work again and I don't have to get up to pee three times a night.

I won't even mention the turtle head feeling, oops I just did.

Unfortunate captions

The present CEO of Telstra often gets compared to Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong fame.

Imagine the reaction at work when the picture below appeared. Check out the bit in blue.


Okay, I've cropped the rest out to make it funnier. He's actually talking about broadband speeds, or lack thereof, here in Australia.

On the topic of broadband, I got a new Next G mobile phone yesterday. It seems funny watching a minisode of Starsky and Hutch while sitting on the bus on the way home.