"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened" - Anatole France

I can't believe another two days have by already!! There is never a dull moment at work and before I know it's 5:00 and I'm on my way home. Yesterday didn't turn out how I had expected it. I was scheduled to be part of the Blouberg Conservation Area crew which was going to be chopping an invasive species of trees, however there were not enough volunteers scheduled to be at SANCCOB so they asked if I would like to stay since I had done so well with the penguins the day before : ) I accepted and was assigned once again to Pen 2. Even though I had only worked with the penguins once, I felt that I had been doing it much longer. My reflexes were much quicker and I felt a lot more comfortable and confident catching and picking up the penguins. Feeding went much more smoothly as well. I was warned on Tuesday that the juvenile penguins (called 'blues') can be very difficult to feed because they wiggle a lot while you're trying to put the fish down their throat. They weren't kidding about the wiggling, but they are my favourite to feed because they are so small and cute. We have a penguin in Pen 2, #197, who is very curious and loves to hang around while you are trying to feed the others. He is a free feeder meaning he will eat a fish on his own if you hand it to him. The reason penguins at SANCCOB need to be fed by hand is that in the wild they catch fish while swimming so it's not natural for them to eat a fish out of water.
Yesterday a release was scheduled for 5 penguins and 2 cape gannets, but the boat that normally takes them out is unavailable until further notice. Luckily for the penguins there is a research boat that is going to bring them out on the weekend, but unfortunately they will not be able to take any volunteers. I still have another 4 weeks so I'm sure I will have the opportunity at some point.

Today was a little different than the last couple of work days. I was sent to the Cart Horse Protection Association which removes abused and neglected horses from owners, rehabilitates them and then hands them over to the ASPCA for adoption. It was an hour and a half drive each way so we only had a few hours available to work, but I feel like we accomplished a lot in the short time we had there. The first two hours we picked weeds in a few of the pens with horses wandering around us. After we had finished weeding we were shown how to brush a horse and for the next hour we brushed 3 horses. It was my first time grooming a horse and I absolutely loved it!! Because many of the horses have been abused, some did not like being touched and would try to bite, but there were others who were quite content with being brushed and shown lots of love and attention. Although working with horses is not what I signed up for, I still enjoyed it and felt like I was making a difference.