We are looooong overdue for a post!

First, the good.

We’ve finally made it into our new location and moved the chinchillas and other animals before the big Hurricane Florence scare. Even though things are not perfectly organized yet, at least we have all the animals safe and sound and in one place.

Our new property is giving us an abundance of new varieties of wood that we’ve been selectively cutting and processing for the chinchillas. On our new property we’ve found blueberry and grapevine, poplar and dogwood and much more! We’ve learned that poplar wood smells minty when it’s cut. And has a minty/lily smell as it dries. The wood is gorgeous with its zebra striped bark. Next is dogwood. As much as I hate to cut these down, some trees are just not well placed on the property. We feel the chinchillas will benefit much more from them. Funny thing, dogwood wood is ugly and smells like a new pack of disposable diapers. *shrug* Chinchillas like the weirdest things.

Our future apple, pear and mulberry orchard are growing nicely… in their pots and temporary garden spots. We are also working toward reclaiming some overgrown land to turn into usable orchard space.

Our workshop has gotten quite the work out! It is large enough to allow us to haul in small trees to work in a climate controlled environment. This is also perfect and necessary for harvesting leaves for our Confetti Cuisine. You may have noticed this year that the leaves are GORGEOUS! We have perfected our secret process for drying leaves in a way that retains color and vital nutrients.

Now the bad.

If you follow us on facebook, you may have seen pictures of the happy new families who have come to adopt. Over the summer we’ve had surrenders happen, adoptions happen, and matchmaking sessions. It’s been a whirlwind trying to operate from two locations as we’ve accommodated different individuals according to where they live. Making the two hour drive back and forth has been a daunting task. Did anyone notice the difference? I’m afraid yes. We’ve had a few glitches but our followers/customers have (mostly) been amazing. Thank you all for your encouragement as we’ve taken on this enormous task.

The ugly.

Our move from one location to another has taken far too long to complete as we’ve hit snags and roadblocks and... just plain crooked individuals. Walling in the new rescue room started so well! We had a framer who was amazing. Then things went downhill from there. The air conditioner in the office/rescue building broke down. That became an unexpected $1000 bill. Ouch! But long story short, two different companies took our money and ran, never completing the drywall job. It is really rather embarrassing to admit this. Whimsy ended up finishing it herself (it took 6 days) and volunteers helped with the paint. Just in time for the hurricane scare. *sigh*

Now that we’re mostly settled in all that remains is some minor tweaking as we sort, resort, arrange and figure out the best way to store and utilize all the space! We have extra cages set up and ready for mass surrenders that are bound to happen. Funny thing is, I typed out this post just before we got word of a mini-mass surrender of 8 and a  group of 3. It’s a good thing we put together the extra cages. Looks like we’ll need to set up some for maternity watch as well.

Busy! Busy! Busy!  The workshop has already been put to good use as we’ve been working to craft some gorgeous lumber into our signature cage accessories. Many of our cages have gotten a facelift with some long overdue swapping of tired old and chewed up ledges with some tidy new ones. Is it time to freshen your chinchillas cage? We would love to help out! We often post pictures of ideas of ways to arrange ledges to make a cage more interesting. We hope that our store offers enough variety to keep everyone entertained. At any rate, with our larger facility, we also have larger bills. While we appreciate those who have chosen to support our rescue, we really love crafting our wares to help enliven other chinchilla’s homes. So if you’re looking for ways to spoil your chinchilla (or other gnawing pet), why not come check out our webstore? And don’t forget the chew toys!