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!

Happy May everyone!

For the month of April we had four (4) chinchillas surrendered and two (2)  chinchillas were adopted.

Our numbers of chinchillas are much more manageable now and our upcoming move of them should be relatively easy. We had hoped to have everyone settled in before the heat of summer, but it looks like that’s just not going to happen. We assumed that by hiring pros we could get the necessary work to the new building done quickly and efficiently. That has proven to be a radically unrealistic idea as we are at the mercy of every one of those individuals' schedules. So far we’ve had the framing to the new chinchilla room done. Ed from Olde Oak Construction was especially sensitive to our timeline and worked us in to his schedule. His work was outstanding and very reasonable. AND, he cleaned up after himself! We hope to utilize Ed for many more future growth projects.

We’ve also got the electrical moved, new lines run and powered up. The extra thick insulation is in place for added sound dampening and heat barrier between the rescue room and workshop. The drywall is up. Doors are in place. Sounds good, right? Well, now comes the hard part. The air conditioning in the building completely died and it just so happened during the electrical and drywall phase. So the drywall mud couldn’t dry and the construction guys were absolutely miserable. Now we’re fighting with the home warranty company about repair to the HVAC system. Obviously we can’t move the chinchillas in until that is fixed!

In the meantime, we are slowly painting the offices as we can squeeze in time for a day trip and hauling in lots and lots of files. We still need to finish the drywall. Our wall man seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. (Karma baby, Karma) We need to finish the trim, prime and paint the rescue room. Needless to say, with all the road blocks we have no planned date for our official move. We’re still operating surrenders, adoptions and websales (mostly) as usual. We appreciate a little extra patience as we juggle the timing of everything.

Here is a panorama inside view of the rescue room. The wall isn't "really" curved, it's just the camera angle. This shows our progress as of today. Getting closer!

Happy January everyone! And welcome to 2018!

For the month of December three (3) chinchillas were surrendered and six (6) chinchillas were adopted. We had a largish number of inquiries for adoption in December as folks considered adding new family pets before the holidays. Christmas is a great time to justify spending the necessary start up costs for chinchilla ownership. But once the big ticket items are taken care of, the rest is (usually) maintenance. For us, the fun part is post-holiday when we meet all the new chin parents who hear about our rescue and webstore. We love seeing all the different ways people use our cage accessories and chew toys to decorate cages and pamper their pets. Happy! Happy! Happy!

But now for some long awaited news. For those of you who have been following us for some time, you know that we were this --><-- close to winning the Rock Spring Farm Essay Contest two years ago. Ever since then we have looked for a suitable alternative. When the essay contest was canceled after we learned we were finalists, some of you suggested we start a gofundme page to gather donations for the purchase of a larger place. Whimsy didn’t feel comfortable asking for donations to foot the bill for a new home. That is our personal responsibility, no matter how much of it is related to operating the rescue and support store.

It’s been difficult to keep the secret. And actually, 2017 has been a frustrating one as we chased after the possibility of owning a certain property that never panned out. We did, however, find another place that is even better! And the amazing thing is, our contest essay gave us the edge this time around as ours was the “backup offer” that earned the favor of the sellers. So with this news we’d like to announce that we’ve found the future new home of Whimsy’s Menagerie!

The new place is remarkably perfect. It has a charming home on lush acreage. There is room enough to keep the horses on our own property, and planting space to transfer and expand our young organic orchard. Best of all, it has a separate workshop/warehouse/office building that is larger than our current home! We will finally have the much needed space to work and keep the chinchillas in a building other than our living quarters. Additionally, the shop has its own septic, gas and electric system. This will allow our CPA an easier task of keeping our business and personal expenses separate. Whimsy’s Menagerie runs and operates through webstore sales and donations, but Whimsy does not take a salary. We have alternate means of income for personal expenses such as for the mortgage on the new home. We’ve got the new home covered now, but ask that those of you who would like, can contribute to the modeling and finishing of the new rescue room.

The future “Whimsy’s Workshop” is a blank canvas. There are offices carved out of a portion of the building that are finished with insulation, drywall, lighting, heat and AC. The actual workshop area is a gigantic unfinished space where we would need to claim some for the rescue room, quarantine/isolation room, sanitation area and storage. For this we need to have interior walls constructed and insulated, a stairway built for attic storage access, floor laid, electrical, heat and AC routed. We have had a structural engineer come to assess and estimates presented. 

Our future new home is currently under contract with a closing date of spring 2018. So we have a few months to prepare. We’re planning to make the move seamless as we shift in stages from one location to the other. But we can certainly use some help with transport, set up, cleaning, construction, etc. The following gofundme link is in place specifically for the construction and improvement of the rescue and related areas. We hope to have this project funded and started by the end of March. If you would like to contribute, we would be thrilled! Alternatively, any donations or funds “rounded up” made through paypal that do not cover regular operating costs, go into the construction fund. We’re excited to finally share with you the relief of our growing pains. Thank you everyone for making this possible! The good favor of our new and returning customers has convinced us that we're doing the right thing.