Critters in a Picnic Basket

 So here it is.  My old blue plastic picnic basket.

I can't remember when I got it - maybe 2006?  It has seen a lot of use.  But it has never held a picnic.

Back then, my friend Gill was volunteering with an animal rehabber, Chris.  Through her, I was asked if I wanted to foster some baby animals - maybe possums, perhaps squirrels - I can't remember.  But we drove down and Chris gave me this basket of - let's say - possums.  She had gotten a load of these baskets at the overstock store Big Lots, and they were perfect for baby animals.

After the possums were grown and released, I took the basket back to Chris.  She said thank you, disappeared to the back for a few minutes, and then brought it back to me with more baby animals.  I hadn't known that it was a refillable container.

After this happened a half-dozen times or so, I finally realized that the basket was mine.  Eventually my co-workers and later my students came to recognize that basket and come flocking over to see what wee critters were in it this time.  Usually possums or squirrels; I carried my new kitten in it for awhile while he was still being bottle fed, and Dingo the flying squirrel called it home for awhile.  Once it was baby armadillos.

While I mostly fostered small animals, a couple of times I was lucky enough to get foxes. 

While I obviously spent a lot of time running back and forth to Chris's, I can't honestly say we were friends, not in the close sense.  Like I mentioned in an earlier post, people who devote their lives to animals are often not people persons.  But I deeply admired her, and was fascinated and sometimes entranced by the animals I met when I was there.  (Who knew that baby vultures are pink and fuzzy?)

It was also at Chris's that I learned just how sharp an osprey's talons are when they grab your wrist (I was restraining him while his beak was getting trimmed).

So, for a dozen year or so, running down to FWMA (Florida Wild Mammal Association, which sounds rather grand but was composed of Chris, her daughter Jess, long-suffering husband Mike, a few part-time staff and some volunteers) and spending springs and summer raising little critters and releasing them was just a normal part of our lives.

Then October 2018 came around with Hurricane Michael which took all our time and energy dealing with that damage for the next six months.  It also wrecked my big outside release pen.  Rebuilding that was our our "things to do" list when Bob got diagnosed.  And by the time the next baby season rolled around, Bob had died and I was dealing with widowhood and Covid isolation and I told Chris that I was too empty physically and emotionally to try to nurture anything.  She could only have a certain number of people fostering under her license, so my slot went to someone else.

A few months ago I was talking to one of the museum volunteers who was also working part-time at Chris's.  He mentioned to Suzie that Chris hadn't felt too well the day before.   I asked what was wrong - thinking cold or flu, hoping it wasn't Covid.  

She had lung cancer. 

She passed away this morning.

The English major in me feels I should have some sort of concluding statement, but that's really about it.  I was involved with Chris and the animals for a dozen years and then I wasn't and now she is gone.