So I realize I never posted....

So I realize I never posted about the rescue christmas tree at Hearts in Motion!  Well, I did mention setting it up, but I never mentioned the outcome or anything about it.

In case I forgot to mention, this year I splurged and spent money on a new tree stand.  The old one just wasn't cutting it and was creating waaaaay too much frustration (and we all know the rescue creates a lot of that for me, as it is), so $17ish later, new tree stand, and we stood the tree up in the stand in less than 2 minutes.  Versus 25 last year, with it falling over multiple times.

And... this year went way better!  Last year, we made $30 total from ornament sales.  Which isn't bad, considering effort put in.  But this year we did even better! -- we made $56.16!  (I'm going to assume we must have had a 15 cent ornament in there....).  My mom went to take down the ornaments and pick up the cash (thank you, thank you -- though I did have to go lug the tree itself home, so no one thinks I did nothing lol), and the workers said our rescue tree sold the most out of all the trees!  Yay!!

Thank you to the people who donated ornaments for us to sell.  There were very few of you, but we did sell a lot of your ornaments, and they made our tree look different!  I tend to buy the same type of cheap ornaments that we can mark up to sell if we're getting low (let's be honest, the cheap ornaments from the dollar store and walmart all sort of have the same "look" to them), so donations of ornaments always help!  And of course, thanks to everyone who bought ornaments! 

In other news, the donation boxes at the store got around ~$45 for January!  Who-hoo!!

Went to feed and water the critters today, and poor Shani (prairie dog) was back to her moving around all of the bedding.  She wouldn't come to me, so I pulled her out, and she must have been upset cause she started doing the prairie dog warning call.  So I petted her and scratched her butt (she loves that) until she calmed down and stopped.... and then she went back to moving her bedding around when I put her back in the cage.  Yeah she's gotten a little obsessive, so she'll be getting a buddy come spring.  I just need to call up the exotics place and put down a deposit to reserve one. 

In other news, lots of people calling, not a lot of people adopting.  Had one guy, emailed wanting to adopt, hadn't gotten a chance to respond by the time he called, and we talked for awhile about appropriate chin care and chin items.  So he tells me, he's already got a cage and all the items, he just ordered them, but could send them back if they're not right.  So I tell him, ok, screenshot me pictures of your order and I'll tell you.  Well... lots of stuff needed to be changed.  Now, in all fairness, not his fault, because he told me, he read a chinchilla book and he purchased the recommended products.  I suggested others, mentioned why the bad ones were bad, and so on and so forth, and he ended up cancelling his appointment and saying they decided to wait, that he wants to make sure that the chinchilla isn't something they pay attention to for a week and then lose interest in.  Which may very well be the case, but I sort of wonder if he wasn't like, god she's pesty about having the right things, and just getting one elsewhere.  Cause I mean, he did have a lot of stuff, he had a nice cage (with plastic shelves), a plastic litterbox, a plastic food/hay holder, oxbow food (good), junk treats, etc etc.  I mean, it's definitely worth people doing it right, that's the problem though with there being so much wrong info out there.  Like I feel like, had he run across my site, or some of the good facebook groups, he would have purchased the correct items from the start, but as it was....

Anyway, moving along.  Played phone tag with someone for a few days regarding them getting a chin.  People were fully set to come down tomorrow or Sunday, and I asked them if they'd read the care packet or seen the adoption form (since they said they'd looked at my website multiple times, but never mentioned it).  Oh, they said, they know how to care for chins.  They did their research for their first chin.  Which died suddenly not very long after they got it.  Now, that may be completely unrelated, and I may just be assuming... but... I really hate it when people just are like "oh I know how to care for them."  Don't get me wrong, some people really do know correct chinchilla care.  Those people are out there.  But for every 1 of those, there's 500 that "think" they know how to care for a chin, until I tell them "no raisins" and they're like "but everyplace says I can give 10 per day!!!!!"  Yeah ok.  Anyway, I told em, get me back the adoption form first, because they're not from around here, and I told em, I don't want them coming all this way and not leaving with a chin, so they said they would.  So, we will see.

Had someone else email about a chin.  I emailed back, no response, was at a seminar today, and was going through emails, and I texted them.  Whole family is sick, so chin-adopting is being put on hold.  Understandable.

Had someone else email asking about a few chins and asking if they're social and would do well with other chins.  Both chins they mentioned had had cagemates in the past, but I told her... unfortunately, that's not always a predictor of the future.  Would be nice, but not always.  Toby used to live with cagemates, and then randomly beat up Winx one day.  And I tried pairing him with other chins over the years, he's not having it.  So I told the person, they can always bring their chin with, and we can see how things go.  So, we'll see where that goes.

Oh and then I got a call from someone who adopted guinea pigs around this time in 2013, that is unable to keep them.  They're going to bring them back with cage and everything, sometime soon.  I believe it's two of the males that were born here, if I'm remembering these people right, but I didn't ask (because it really doesn't matter....), so we'll see when they get here. 

I think that's it for the moment.