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!

Well...March came and went with no fanfare. We expected to have all sorts of new news about our new place, the moving progress, pictures, videos, etc. But we've been hit with some unexpected roadblocks. It seems one issue after another keeps appearing like a long lost family member looking for their portion of an inheritance. We have likened the experience to a bad group project. You know the kind. One person pulls all the weight, most wait until the last minute to contribute, someone else says everything is all wrong and we need to start over again, someone else plagiarizes, complaints are made about "that" person who does nothing and is allowed to get away with a passing grade regardless. *sigh* Closing on the new place has been delayed multiple times already as one issue after another must be addressed.

In the meantime, we're operating business as usual. We have wood to harvest and process. Lumber to cut, parts to drill, orders to fill...*cue the music* This is beginning to sound like another song. 

If Whimsy's was a musical: The home purchase is a country song. The activity of our realtor is the orchestral interlude, Flight of the Bumblebee. Filling store orders is a Tolkien style dwarvish work chant.

Lovebug, piñata, hugs & Kisses, bunny!
Jacob’s ladder, pumpkin platter
This is kinda funny!
Chinchworm, fruitwood kabob, and a pound of wood!
Don’tcha know we’re ready to go....
...send payment if you would.

Aside from that, the chins are doing great. The neutered boys are healing well. We have several inquiries for pairbonding that are on hold until we move. And we have some rescues due to come in. We've been freshening up some cages with new ledges and have been processing wood like crazy. And speaking of wood...

We're a bit backlogged on processing as spring is the ideal time to harvest. The drying phase is the most time intensive. It MUST be done slowly and thoroughly to be sure there is no chance of the wood molding. The Jacob's Ladders are on hold until the larger whirls are completely dehydrated. We've seen far too many other vendors "bake" wood quickly to sell a heavier product that isn't completely dry. This is very dangerous practice! Not only does that rip off the consumer, but it makes for a toxic chew!

And...on that happy note, it's time to get back to work. We hope to have some exciting and good updates soon.

For the month of August, five (5) chinchillas were surrendered and eight (8) chinchillas were adopted. We had one rescue chin here for hospice who passed over the rainbow bridge. Now her cagemate is in need of a new friend.

Our summer and now continuing autumn has kept us so busy that it looks like the new standard for posts is nearly a month behind. :s We've been harvesting and processing wood to carry us through the winter. Not only have we completed the scheduled trims, we also managed to cut, harvest and process a whole pear and mulberry tree!

We've even had to catch up on some toy making at home since the student-crafters have been on summer vacation. Fortunately, school started back up this month and our schedule for working with the special needs students making our chinchilla chew toys is back on track. We have lots of new faces, names, skills and personalities to learn. It's always exciting to see how the students grow in their chew toy making skills from the beginning of the year to the end. We are fortunate enough to have some more seasoned students to help guide the newbies.

This month we also had the pleasure of having another booth at this year's Virginia Beach Pet Expo. Since this isn't our first cakewalk, we learned a few tricks to implement this time. The arm protectors went over well to protect our delicate forearms from scratchy chinnie nails. We also kept a tally count of how many times we heard people say, "It's so soft!" (385 times) or, "It's so cute!" (101 times). It certainly helped pass time. The voluntolds (AKA Whimsy's clan, not necessarily "volunteers") were all good sports about the event. Thanks kids!

We requested a corner booth near the Mega Adoption Area. Although we did not allow adoptions at the actual event, we did bring a couple of Critter Nation cages and 4 bonded pairs of chins for outreach. Our primary goal was to let our community know we exist, serving multiple states, and that we have countless chinchillas available for adoption (always). We did get a healthy handful of individuals who expressed interest in adopting, but time will tell. We also wrapped up the event having only made one enemy. One of hundreds, that's pretty good odds. The person in question made the mistake of telling an animal rescue worker that she lets her pets breed without restraint. That's akin to admitting to a police officer that you just committed murder. This confession doesn't go over well with Whimsy. 

On a more positive note, as a bonus, the people at the Pet Expo invited Whimsy to speak on stage about chinchillas! Silly Whimsy, what she thought was supposed to be a 30 second mini commercial was in actuality a 30 MINUTE allotted speech time! Piece of cake. Whimsy winged it....and nailed it. It certainly helps knowing your subject. ;)

All in all September has been quite eventful. With that being said, our apologies to those who have waited more than 24 hours for their online orders. 

The way we store chinchilla supplies is critical for our fur babies' health. Certain items require storage in a cool, dry, dark place, while others need to “breathe.”  Some chinchilla products have a shelf life, while others last indefinitely. Feed pellets are one of the more common foods about which people tend to have a laissez faire attitude. Pellets are relatively cheap when purchased in bulk, but begin to lose nutritional value after 3 months. Products that claim to have a 1-year shelf life do not address the fact that the nutrients gradually dwindle over that period. These should be stored in an air-tight container. 

We often receive raves about the freshness of our pellets where people claim that their chins shun pet store pellets, but love ours. This is mainly because we open and use our supplies within a very short time. This results in an ultra-fresh, bright green pellet that is nutrition dense. It is wise to only purchase as much pelleted feed as your pet can use within two months or less.

Another very important food item that requires specialized handling is dried hay. This item should be stored where it is allowed full air circulation, but is out of direct sun or bright light. This allows excess moisture to escape without causing the product to mold. If hay is stored in an airtight container, the anaerobic environment allows moisture and bacteria to accumulate and begin the process of decomposition. Sunlight and direct artificial light also leaches the chlorophyll and other vitamins from hay, resulting in a product that is no more nutritious than straw. Good hay depends on the growing season, cultivation, harvesting, and storage techniques. 

Loose wood, properly prepared, is another essential food item for chinchillas. However, proper preparation is critical in knowing how to process wood safely. The most important considerations are: is the wood organic? Has it been boiled to kill off parasites and allow for excess dirt and foreign growth removal? Has it been slowly dehydrated to ensure even drying? Quick “roasting” or “baking” at high temperatures for short periods of time is not adequate for wood processing. This method cooks the outer bark while leaving the middle damp. Mold spores are deadly to your chin! These can cause loose stool and potential death.  

We slowly convection dry all our hand selected woods for a minimum of 24 hours. Thicker pieces can take up to 5 days of continuous dry time to reach perfection. You can rest assured that we take care and caution when preparing our chinnie foods, treats and chew toys. Our reputation, and our chins, depend on it! 

Spring is in the air!

It's time to harvest wood for the chinnies and their toys. Lately we've been working on cutting and preparing apple, crabapple and pear woods to make new toys. I'm sure our neighbors wonder why we come home with our van full of branches!

It takes quite a bit of work to cut the pieces to size, boil, then bake the wood, but it's also a nice time to sit around, talk and laugh. We often find this chore a nice bonding time, kinda like knitting circles or bean snapping back when families used to do that sort of thing.

We're especially excited with the new "coins" we were able to make out of the larger branches. Look at what we've done!