Yesterday...for those who want to know

Well, I figured I might as well talk about what kind of day I had yesterday.  To begin, we (my wife and I) got up around 8 a.m., which is actually quite early for two people supposedly on vacation.  We had a mission; we had to clean 23 gopher cage systems in one day.  To bring some up to date, my wife actually has a gopher colony.  By gopher I mean Geomys breviceps.  The details of said colony will have to remain a bit sketchy for the time being, but I must tell you that cleaning 23 cage systems in one day with only 2 people is a good deal of work.

Anyway, we get to where the colony is housed, and I immediately go to the dirt pile in order to obtain some dirt.  Why, you ask?  Because gophers live in dirt, subterranean style.  Ah, here's the first rub, the dirt pile is now a puddle of baby doody type mud - not good.  So, off my wife goes with her prof. to obtain dirt.  Where they go is a mystery to me, but some kind person out there donates it - we have only to pick it up.  While they are out, I get about 30 - 45 minutes to clean the mud off of me, play on the Internet, etc...  It is now around, I don't know, 10:30 - 11:00 a.m.

Once they return, as mentioned 30 - 45 minutes later, my wife and I are left to shovel the 3000 + pounds of dirt out of the pickup truck.  We shovel it into two matching kiddy pools, and then try as best we can to make sure the bed of the truck is clean enough for government work. 

We then fill up a few buckets, take them to the gopher room, and begin cleaning cages.  We manage to clean 8 systems when my wife's prof. wants to go eat lunch, so we go eat - slop house style.  Once we return, we clean the remaining 4 cages; 12 total for those counting.  12, because we have to put the dirty cages in the cage washer so that we can clean the remaining cages. 

Here's the second rub.  Gophers actually need to have their nails clipped - just like a dog or a cat.  I have never, until yesterday, picked up a gopher by hand.  For those that do not know, gophers are not the friendliest of folks - especially these breviceps.  Reinforced leather gloves are necessary to pick up these creatures.  I must say that I have in the past clipped their nails, but have never had to hold them - something that is usually reserved for my wife.  I had to hold these because we were clipping the male gophers' nails.  The male gophers are quite a bit bigger than the females and my wife cannot hold them because of their general bigness.  So, as stated or implied, I had to hold them.  They are nasty little devils and picking them up and holding them firmly took some getting used to, but was eventually managed.  I only got bitten a couple of times - they actually bite directly through reinforced leather gloves. 

To continue, after the cages finished in the washer, we completed cleaning gopher cage systems.  By now, the time was about 6 or 6:30ish in the p.m.  We still had to feed the critters, so we did, relatively quickly.  We then cleaned up, mopped, and made our escape.  On the way home we picked up some Fazoli's because I and she was too tired to cook.

The third rub was briefly mentioned earlier, and that was, I am on vacation!  However, I must admit that cleaning cages and playing with gophers may be, well IS, more fun than my actual job.  Gophers are actually really interesting and amazing creatures.  Give a gopher a chance!

Well, that was my day and the picture below is MURRAY!!

Grinnin' Murray