So, I know it's been forever since I've written anything, my bad, I know. To be honest, while I can tell you about what has gone on with my life, not a ton has changed on the NWI Chins front.
The last time I wrote was at the beginning of September, and many things have changed since then. To start with, if you've followed along on facebook, you saw that I did close on my Hammond house, and moved to Chesterton.
Chesterton has been great. The neighbors that I have met (well, the one neighbor that I have met, 40000 times, you know who you are!) have been nice and friendly. Two houses down, the people have free range chickens which occasionally make it onto my next door neighbor's yard, so I get to oggle the cute chickens and say, "oooh look at the chickens!!!"(something I DEFINITELY could not have done in Hammond). This has spurred fun conversations about putting trails of chicken scratch into my yard so they come closer this way, so I can oggle from less of a distance. The neighors behind me aren't assholes about the dogs -- in fact, they have their own crew of three dogs -- looks like a shepherd, a lab, and a something -- who also bark all the time. Nothing I've left outside has walked out of my yard as of yet.
It's just good all around.
The reason I haven't written much is, there's not much going on with the rescue front (and I'm sure most of you aren't all that interested in my personal life). The property has a pole barn, which I believe I mentioned earlier... which needs plumbing, cement, HVAC, and electrical work done before I can bring the chins (or any animals) back into the place. I've had the place about a month now, and as of yet, nothing has been started yet. Apparently it's the end of season, and every place is busy... go figure.
Minor things are still happening though, just not on the scale they were before. We did adopt out some young guinea pigs this month / last month, and today I get to meet another potential adopter at 10:30 (at the foster home) to see if she is interested in the last of the ones from those litters. We also have a father / son pair of guinea pigs that are available (but have never been listed, in case you're like... "but I've never seen them anywhere!"). I believe we have found a home for them as well, and the person interested in those cuties will be coming by (to the foster home) next Friday to see them. In the meantime, she will get ready.
My current worker, Alex, convinced me that he needed to foster some guinea pigs that I was going to add to my waiting list, so I agreed to let them come in, provided they would only be at my place for dropoff. You see, other than my dogs and a lone hamster and non-furry friends, there will not be chinchillas / guinea pigs in this house. Anyway, I spoke with the person wanting to drop off the guinea pigs... these were guinea pigs adopted from NWI back in March-ish...and asked they bring a cage. Now, if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that I normally still have a cage ready, just in case that doesn't work out, but right now, well... I don't. So, you know they brought the wire for a cage, but not the base... so last night was a bit of a scramble (but I hear it is taken care of). I do have someone else who was interested in some young guinea pigs, so I will give these guys a little bit to settle into their foster home, and will reach out to that person. If, for some reason, she is no longer interested, they will be posted for adoption when the time comes.
In the meantime though, with very few animals (and almost none except my dogs and a hamster in my direct care) to worry about, we have been working on unpacking and re-stocking! It's almost funny, because I have about everything I need unpacked to live in the house... and I am in the mode of, "how much do I really need the rest of this crap?" So my to-be-garage-saled pile is growing. Not a bad thing -- decluttering is a good, real thing!
With the barn currently unfinished, all of the power tools (aka mess-makers) such as the two miter saws, drill press, sanders, etc... are all out there. The band saw will make it's way out, once we get the new blade put on. Originally, these were all going to be in the house, and we were going to build a shop in the basement, like a dry-walled room... but upon further thought, the "wood shop" -- strictly for cutting and such -- will be out in the barn, and the "workshop" will be in the house. I've taken all of my shelving units, which used to be in the basement of the Hammond house, and they have all been set up in the Chesterton basement, on the workshop side, to hold boxes, supplies, and so on. Also went to Menards and grabbed 6 more shelving units, so I have places to put my own household storage, like holiday decorations and whatnot. So, that's coming along.
We've taken a few trips to storage, and probably have at least 1/2 of everything in there, back at the house. We would have more, but without the barn done, there's nowhere to put the chinchilla stuff, so my shed is getting filled with some of that (that somehow inadvertently keeps making its way back to the house), but the large pieces will stay in storage til the end. Plus, of course, the entire semi-trailer full of chin-stuff and cages is still at Jims. But about half of both storage units has been moved, and a decent amount (maybe 1/2 of what's been moved) has been unpacked. Coming right along!
In moving things and doing orders, we've had requests for more things, so for example, someone asked about the muncher's delight toys. Well, now that I had a place to put a bag of hay cubes again (if you missed it, the last bag got wet the last time the Hammond basement flooded, so that was trash), so we went to the feed store and bought two bags of hay cubes, and made more of these toys! They are now available on the website. Also, we've put together all the fleece tubes that I currently can, and those are listed on etsy. Those will also be listed on the website (nwichinchillas.com) as soon as I am able, and we are going to get our toys back up on Etsy, as soon as I can get a group picture, so I can do one listing which will include all of them... rather than individual listings, which honestly hasn't worked out so well.
And, as more time goes by, and we find more of the supplies that we need for different things, keep an eye out for out herb jars to come back, more of the out-of-stock toys to come back, fleece hanging houses to come back, and so forth!
Well, I just heard from the boyfriend that plumbing needs to come out to the house today, so he's going to head over there, as I need to be on my way to Munster, to care for some guinea pigs with Brad, and meet my potential adopter.
Hope you all have enjoyed the update -- hopefully will have more to update soon!
