When I got home, noticed two huge boxes from Bass sitting on the front porch, so I went and brought those in. Opened them right away to check that the pans weren't damaged (lately I've been reading on the forum that people have been getting damaged pans from them, but no, ours were fine). Took the two custom pans and laid them on top of the cages they were set for -- had to have my eek-moment where I checked that they actually were going to fit the cages... which they did. And if they didn't, I'd just be screwed cause Bass doesn't accept returns on custom pans (as would only make sense).
Also opened up my two cutout FN pans from Bass, and those were good as well.
So, now that I had the pans, I could write up the listings for two more cages, so I did that, and added 3 more cages (the one I was just kinda sitting around on, waiting until I could do the three at once) to the Used Cages for Sale page. The custom pans fit the cages good and they look so much better (and so much more "useful" than the pans that had rusted all the way through). So I got those listed.
Then, put the one cutout pan in the FN, and poured some vinegar into one of the bottom FN pans and scrubbed and let it sit... and scrubbed and let it sit... and scrubbed and let it sit. Well, eventually I decided it was as good as I was going to get it, and put that in the FN. So the one FN is completely together with the pans in it now. No accessories or anything, that's for another day. Started scrubbing and letting sit another one of the FN pans... the 2nd best pan out of the four that came with the cages... that one I spent forever on, and it still requires more elbow grease, but I ended up drying it out for the night and I can go back to it tomorrow, or another day.
Realized that the doors on the FN (the completed one) are a bit... stiff. Like they don't swing freely, so I think I'm going to dig out a rubber mallet, get those doors off, clean and WD-40 the hinges, and *crosses fingers* get the doors back on. Again, for another day though.
As for the chins -- well, I suppose this isn't the "rescue" - but one of our pedigreed chins, Lilly, FINALLY had her babies -- two mosaics (male/female) and a standard (female). Very happy about that, mom looks good, babies all healthy. The white boy looks like our Toby -- light gray around the eyes and base of the tail, but otherwise white. He's the biggest, over 50 grams... the other two were 44 and 49 I believe. Good weights.
So I marked the babies down in our "chin birth records" file, they are MNWI B11-B13. Bailey and Lilly's kits. Some pictures:
Precious little things. And that's day-one -- born eyes open, fully furred, ready to go. Perfectly squeezable.
And, also not the "rescue" per se, but I also realized I said that Pixie (g-pig) had her pups but I never posted pics of them either... was reminded when someone asked about them today and I was thinking, "did I tell her that Pixie had her babies?" and then I thought, "it's probably in the blog." Two appear to be Abyssinian and the other looks to be your regular short-hair...but has one curl on its back.
The last picture isn't the greatest, but it's good for size comparison -- note the size of Truffles' head/nose compared to the size of the baby. I need to get some pictures of our adults... I'm not even sure they're listed on the "our pets" page. Need to get on that. Not enough hours in the day.
And I could have stayed downstairs scrubbing the FN pans, fixing the doors for the cage, and playing with all the babies... but there's work in the morning, so... gotta pay for the rescue somehow.
I ran across this article today that talked about how people say they "rescued" a dog if they bought one from the pet store, cause they were "saving" it from the puppy mill or whatever, and was saying how that's such a misconception.... well, anyway, the article itself wasn't important, but I thought it drew an interesting distinction between rescues and pet stores. Said something like:
A rescue is an organization that is trying it's hardest to put itself out of business.
A pet store is an organization trying its hardest to stay in business.
...and when you think about it, isn't that the truth? As a rescue, we/other rescues take in sick animals that non one wants which require a lot of care, time, and perhaps, most importantly, money, and adopt them out for nowhere near what we've spent on them. Have to pay for good toys, good food, and so on. We filter our water for the rescues. We have a good portion of our basement devoted to the rescue. We have to cool/heat that area to keep the rescues happy/healthy. It all costs money, and in the end, the rescue ends up losing out. Which is why we started selling supplies and used cages and started carrying new cages to sell and all of that, because we were always so far in the negative that there was just no way to keep the rescue open. My bank account just isn't that big, even with a $9/hour job and a $10/hour job (and the difference between the $9/hour and $10/hour jobs? The $10/hour job required 7 years of education, the $9/hour job -- no education needed). Oh yeah, I'm not a millionaire, did I mention that? The rescue actually has its own bank account, our "Fuzzy Fund," and it is in the positive now, and has been (thankfully) since we started seriously carrying supplies and looking into selling just about everything someone might need to go with a chin. We have had some great people help us out, pointing us to cheaper places to get some stuff wholesale and just otherwise good places to get things at a more reasonable price than others. We've had volunteers come over and help us clean cages, sand down shelves/toys, and whatever else is needed. We've had people drive out to an owner's home, pick up rescues, and bring us the rescues the once when I was off from work for a month because of illness and couldn't drive out to get them myself. We've had a lot of people donate things -- money, cages, whatnot. One of our volunteers donated our two rabbit/guinea pig cages. They're probably $100/each cages and nothing wrong with them. The people that donated money -- well, I know I've talked about how much those FN's have been costing me to buy replacement parts for and fix up -- that money is somewhat coming from donations. A lot of people have contributed to what we are today, and for that, we are thankful. Couldn't do it alltogether on my own, and while the donations and help don't make up quite the amount of difference that the supply sales do, they are actually probably more important, because it shows that people care about what we do and are willing to help us out. That's something.
... on that note, speaking of people helping us out... we may be at the Cal City Petco in the middle of the month at one of their adoption days. I know, right, someone told me I should contact the Petco's/Petsmart's and ask them about participating in their adoption days, and I thought, eh, it's not like we're the humane society, they could say no... but they contacted me! So we're working on figuring that out, but hopefully we'll be able to be there and have some chins showcased. Working that out... is for another day. Yet again, not enough hours.
Also had someone who wanted to be added to our waiting list today... have their email flagged at the moment so I make sure to go back to it... cause it's like 1:30 in the morning and I have to be up at like 7:30... have a few emails flagged actually. And haven't called the people back about Daisy/Delilah yet... tomorrow. Cause I think last week I called them Tuesday, so it'll be a week if I call them tomorrow. Er, today. Later.
Ok, so I really have to go to bed now, so that's it for today.
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