Wildlife Rescue Series!

I have a kindred spirit in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I was at the wildlife center a few weeks ago when I spotted a book perched atop the fridge. Hoot to Kill was the title. Hilarious! Great pun! Oh my goodness, it’s an animal-related eco-thriller! And there are more in the series! Another author doing what Carl Hiaasen is doing, what I’m trying to do.

And then there were three. Little smile of satisfaction. We have created a niche.
As soon as I got home, I logged into Amazon.com and ordered the whole series. Two weeks later, I was deep into Hoot to Kill. Here’s the back cover copy:

Most biologists believe the worst thing about field biology is watching everything else have sex except you.

Robyn Devara is no exception. In the remote logging town of Marten Valley, Robyn knows she’s not likely to win popularity contests, much less get any dates. After all, she’s there to survey the old-growth forest for spotted owls and, if she finds any of the endangered birds, it’s going to mean big changes for the people of Marten Valley.

As it turns out, hostile locals and militant environmentalists are the least of Robyn’s problems after she discovers a body in the forest–the body of a logging foreman, murdered by the well-aimed thrust of a tree spike.

Hoot to Kill is published by Ravenstone, an imprint of Turnstone Press in Winnipeg. Author Karen Dudley worked in field biology, production art, photo research, paleo-environmental studies, editing and archaeology before realizing that being a writer would allow her to be anything and everything.

Hoot to Kill is funny, elegantly written, intricately plotted and rich with the kind of detailed science and research only an expert could bring to a story. But don’t get me wrong; this isn’t a science text or a heavy, didactic tome. It belongs squarely in the murder mystery genre. I just happen to think it’s wonderful how much fascinating fact Dudley is able to weave into her story. The characters are interesting and described in original and humorous detail, and there’s just enough heat between Robyn Devara and a certain Kelt Roberson to lure readers in with the first book and get them seeking out the second.

Protagonist Robyn Devara is a consultant with a fictional envrionmental assessment firm based in Calgary, an excellent device that lets Dudley move her around the continent as various jobs come up; gives her a motely assortment of co-workers; places her on the side of the environmentalists without making her an extremist; and opens up possibilities for exploring environmental and animal rights issues from all angles.

That last aspect might be what I like best about the Robyn Devara Mystery Series, if only because it’s something I work so hard to achieve in my own books. It’s one thing to take a stand, have a point of view, take sides as the author of a series of books. It’s quite another to set an agenda and tell your reader what to think. There really are [at least] two sides to every story; if there weren’t, the environmental and animal welfare conflicts that continue to simmer and occasionally rage around the world would have been tidied up long ago like so many Friends episodes.

I’m just over half way through the second book now: Red Heron (another great pun!), and the third, Macaws of Death (love it!) sits waiting for me on my nightstand. I think Red Heron does an even better job than Hoot to Kill of walking this fine balance between myriad points of view–in this case, on the subject of pesticides. I’m learning a lot, and I can’t put it down. I can’t ask for more than that from any book. As soon as I finish it, I’ll report back.

Mamas, don’t let your kids grow up to be hunters.

Actually, given the proposed laxity around safety regulations and training in Gordon Campbell’s bid to increase the number of BC hunters by 20,000, there’s a good chance your kids won’t grow up at all. BANG! Whoops!

And if you join in the fun yourself, as our Premier and several female-focused hunting “schools” are hoping, you may not make it to old age either. If an “experienced” Dick Cheney can send his friend to the hospital in a single squeeze of his itchy trigger finger, can the morgue be far behind?

Click here to check out the story in Thursday’s (July 12) edition of The Vancouver Province; it’s a one-sided, badly reported piece that neglects entirely to address the attendant animal welfare issues. But there are enough facts there to let you form your own intelligent opinion (see the hundreds of comments of protest at the foot of the story, dotted by brilliant retorts such as “I did not rise to the top of the food chain to eat SOY”).

A few thoughts:

You can’t tell me that moose hunting is about access to organic meat, nor can you tell me it is about providing for your family economically — unless your family survives on the proceeds of antler sales.

You can’t tell me that lowering the age restrictions on hunting and relaxing the training requirements won’t leave hundreds or possibly thousands of animals maimed and wounded in the woods, to die terrible deaths. Or that some of those animals won’t be human animals.
You can’t tell me that most hunters, who declare themselves to be pro-wildlife, aren’t also availing themselves of the spoils of factory farms in their eating and consuming habits. Show me someone who’s truly living off the land in a respectful and balanced way, and I’ll show you Gordon Campbell turning his back to look for a real customer.

You can’t tell me most boys (or girls, for that matter) enjoy that first hunting experience with their over-eager fathers. Study after study has shown that it is one of the more ambivalent experiences of their lives, combining the all-too-rare opportunity to spend one-on-one time with their fathers, with the horrifying experience of killing an innocent animal.

The literature on hunting also elucidates the sexual aspect of the so-called sport: that there are hunters who are aroused by the hunt and who experience the moment of kill as climax. There is even evidence that the consumption of meat increases aggressive and violent tendencies. Just what we need: more aggression and violence, and a marriage of violence and killing with the satisfaction of sexual urges. Need I go on?

If we were talking about taking enough, but not more than enough; about hunting an animal as a worthy enemy; about taking its life cleanly, skilfully and respectfully; about thanking the Creator for the provision of bounty and life; about providing for a whole family, or a whole community; about using everything and wasting nothing; about acknowledging that life and incorporating it into one’s own … well, that would be a different conversation.

But we’re not. We’re talking about licenses and license fees; gun sales and supply revenues; course costs and training fees; economic boost and tourism. We’re talking about money.

Animals are, by law, a commodity. Not only do they hang, precariously, at the bottom of the food chain; they also sit at the bottom of the economic pyramid. They are the product, the widget, the infinitely renewable, re-creatable THING we can use in any way we like, or make/breed as we choose, or destroy on our whim.

It is the models that are wrong. There is no chain. There is no pyramid. There is no bottom, no top. There will be no survivors, if we expect to survive at the expense of each other.

There is only a circle, and we are all held within it. There was only the earth, and we were all made from it — moose and wolf and mouse, man and woman and child. We are all one.

If we say “they” are “things,” then we are saying we are as well. If we understand that they are alive, creatures, sentient beings with feelings and desires and plans and dreams like ours, then we begin to understand ourselves a little.

Mamas, don’t let your kids grow up to be hunters. Not in Gordon Campbell’s army.

I met with my publisher last week and handed him a synopsis for Gaia Wild. It’s with the editorial folks now, awaiting approval (or ???). R liked it; he thought it was the best one yet, the most cohesive and well thought out. Maybe because I actually told the whole story, ending included. In 2003, when all this began, my naivete combined with my background in marketing and sales led me to submit synopses that ended in cliffhangers. I’ve since learned that’s a no-no.
That said, I have no intention of publishing the ending of the book here and now; you get the cliffhanger version. Beyond that, though, we’re looking at ways (R and I) of using a social networking tool such as Facebook to do some advance promotion of the book. I read recently about Toronto author Michael Winter whose publisher, Penguin Canada, has set him up to publish daily on Facebook throughout the process of creating his new novel, The Architects are Here. Interested readers can subscribe to his posts through a special URL. They’re calling it a serialization of the novel, but that’s a misnomer (Charles Dickens serialized; Michael Winter will be promoting). Nevertheless, I think it’s a great idea and worth a try, and it sounds like fun. Stay tuned here for more information about the pseudo-serialization of Gaia Wild.

And meanwhile, a little about the story:

GAIA WILD

Jane can’t believe her eyes … there’s an elephant on Elfin Lake. Not just any elephant, either. It’s Gaia. And Jane knows her—from a long, long time ago.

It’s Jane Ray’s senior year, a whirlwind of new classes and teachers, final exams, graduation, and deciding what the heck to do with the rest of her life. After a summer vacation that got a little too life-and-death for her liking, Jane’s happy just to focus on school and her volunteer work at the Urban Wildlife Rescue Center. As for her lackluster social life, she’s decided it might be time to let her wild side take over … if she can only find it. I mean, really, Universe, would it be too much to ask for a boyfriend while I still have my youthful good looks?

Actually, the Universe has other plans ….

Gaia, a 35-year-old Indian elephant, is on loan from the Raincity Zoo to Animal Actors Inc. to see if she’s got what it takes to make it in the entertainment biz. If this commercial shoot on Elfin Lake goes well, Animal Actors Inc. will buy Gaia from the Zoo and put her to work in film and TV. If she acts up, however, the deal is off, and she goes back to the Zoo.

Timo Lausanne, owner of Raincity Zoo, cares about his animals, sure, but he’s a businessman first and foremost, and he’s got a bottom line to worry about. He’s losing sleep over the Animal Actors Inc. deal, hoping for Gaia’s sake and his own that everything goes smoothly. He’s heard some dodgy things about the company, but the sale will mean a longer life for the elephant, and a nice chunk of change and ongoing residuals for him. She’s old, frankly, at least as far as zoo attractions go, and she’s not that healthy. It’s not hard to conceal her foot infections during the shoot, but the head-swinging’s growing worse, her vet bills are getting ridiculous, and lately she’s been refusing to eat. Her handler, Raj, is starting to make noises about retiring her, but where? How? It’s not like there’s an old folks’ home for pachyderms anywhere in Vancouver. And no zoo in North America’s going to buy a lame, half-crazy, 35-year-old elephant. No, Timo’s made up his mind: if Animal Actors Inc. doesn’t take her, it’ll be time to put her down.

With the help of Flory’s research prowess, Jane learns that Gaia has spent 33 of her 35 years in a small yard at Raincity Zoo—thousands of miles from her true home, and mostly alone. Jane remembers meeting her as a little girl, when the Zoo offered elephant rides to their young visitors. She fell in love with the giant, gentle creature then, her tough, bristled hide and her wise, twinkling eyes. Was it possible that in all the intervening years, as Jane had grown, played, made friends, gone to school, Gaia had done nothing but walk around and around the perimeter of that small, barren enclosure?

Horrified at having forgotten Gaia all these years, and convinced the elephant is one of the reasons she loves animals so much now, Jane sets out to sabotage the Zoo’s deal with Animal Actors Inc. Posing as Production Assistants on set, Jane, Amy and Flory snoop around for any information that could put the kibosh on Gaia’s sale, but wind up with more than they bargained for: horrifying footage of Denny Arcola abusing his animal “employees.”

Their undercover op puts the girls in contact with Heath Marin, a cub reporter at the local paper who’s been sniffing around the shady entertainment company ever since it set up shop in Vancouver. Despite the fact that they almost blow his cover, Heath can’t help but develop a grudging liking for these gutsy girls—particularly the quiet one with the long, dark hair and flashing blue eyes. Jane would be thrilled with Heath’s attentions, if it weren’t for the fact that Mike MacGillivray has suddenly started sending her long, rambling (could they be romantic??) letters from Cortes Island, where he works on an organic farm. Going from zero guys to two, on top of senior year stress and an animal cruelty investigation, is too wild too fast!

With their incriminating evidence, and Heath’s help, Jane and her friends take Animal Actors Inc. down. Basking in her success—and Heath’s increased attentions—Jane doesn’t realize Gaia may have traded one death sentence for another. Now that the deal is off, Raincity Zoo is making preparations to euthanize the elephant. In the midst of Christmas exams, she gets a call from a mysterious stranger. Raj, Gaia’s handler, knows what’s in store. He’s seen that Jane cares about his beloved Gaia, but is she willing to come to her aid once again?

The race is on to find Gaia a new home, one that won’t care if she’s older and has health problems, one with the money to foot her vet bills and pay for her food, one where she’s free to wander outdoors or take shelter inside, to enjoy the company of others of her kind or spend time on her own. But does such a place exist?

As the search continues, Jane learns Gaia’s history from Raj, a history that includes the violent death of her herd, including her parents, at the hands of poachers in the ivory trade. She also learns that thanks to poaching and human encroachment on their territory, elephants in the wild have become an endangered species, deprived of land and water and the ancient pilgrimage sites of their ancestors. They are literally going mad, rampaging villages and even killing one another out of fear and stress. Jane is forced to confront the idea that a zoo—a place she has come to believe represents forced captivity and suffering—may for some animals be safer, better than the wild. That encounters with animals in zoos may even be the reason she and others like her fight so passionately to save and protect animals everywhere.

Jane’s weekly shifts at the Urban Wildlife Rescue Centre bring experiences that teach her about the essence of wildness, the connection human animals share with their wild brothers and sisters, and the disappearance of wild spaces and creatures in the wake of human greed and dominance. Jane wonders about what it means to be wild—and what would become of humans and other animals if the last trace of wildness were wiped out forever.

Amid the frantic search for a home for Gaia, Flory is voted Class Valedictorian, but at the last moment, cedes the podium to Jane, who gives an impromptu but impassioned speech about wildness—its preciousness, its vulnerability, its erosion—and what it means to be a wild animal on “Gaia,” planet Earth.

The night before her graduation dance, competition between Heath and Mike for Jane’s affections comes to a head, and Heath asks her to choose between them. For some reason, though, when Jane tries to reach Mike to find out where he stands, he’s incommunicado.

Who will Jane choose? Will the girls find a home for Gaia in time to save her life? And even if they do, is there really anywhere left on earth where she can truly be wild, and free?

-30-

“It’s Your Thing” (The Isley Brothers). “You Shook Me All Night Long” (AC/DC). “We Are Family” (The Supremes). “The Way You Make Me Feel” (Michael Jackson).
The secret reason we all love to spend our summer weekends at weddings: dancing.

There were glo-sticks, rattles for the Latin stuff, and inflatable electric guitars. A few drinks, the right tunes and guitars that required no talent other than the ability to mimic a hard-core, swarm-of-killer-bees, jump-up-and-down, smash-the-instrument-over-your-best-friend’s-head lead guitar solo, and the 40 year old men in the room were all little boys again.

Okay, and a few of us girls, too.

James and Kemi are now Mr. and Mrs. Nordstrom. A beautiful bride, a handsome groom, and what seems to be an absolutely perfect match. Congratulations.

And thanks for a great party.

THE PEN OR THE SWORD?

The Student Writer As SuperHero

For the Delta Kappa Gamma International Educators’ Conference, July 18-22 at the University of British Columbia (Call 512.478.5748 for more information.)

“I wake up each morning determined both to save the world and have one hell of a good time. This sometimes makes planning the day quite difficult.” (E.B. White)

The ability to write is power–when you know how to wield a pen! This workshop will provide educators with the skills and tools to transform classroom writers into SuperHeroes. From the old-fashioned Letter to the Editor to the modern-day blog, there are myriad ways for students to make their voices heard about the issues that matter to them most.

Young people have a “leverage” today that they have never had before in history–just ask the marketers who are angling for their attention, or the retailers who are competing for their dollar. They can use this leverage, if they want, to boost sales for La Senza Girl or iPod. But they have other choices as well. As an educator, be prepared to say, “It’s SuperHero time … will you use your powers for good or evil?”

Every young person will have to choose for him- or herself. But you can make that choice a little easier, by providing the phone booth and the cape, and showing them how to fly.

Hear author and animal activist Diane Haynes talk about the writer as SuperHero, writing as a tool for change, and the power of the pen as an instrument of self-expression, communication, community-building, and transformation.

Workshop take-aways:

• hand-out exercises to get students writing, talking and collaborating
• discussion/improv scenarios that pit the pen against the sword–which choice leads to the result a student is looking for?
• “Class Actions” — group activities that involve writing and have the potential to make changes, in class, at school, in your community
• reading list: books and other written materials that have led to positive social, legal or humanitarian change in a range of areas

For more information on in-school workshops offered by the author, click on EDUCATORS in the navigation bar at the top of the screen, or email janeraybooks@gmail.com

I’m not really sure what happened yesterday.

I was the last speaker at the Vancouver Public Library’s Canadian Book Camp for Kids, 3:30 to 4:15 time slot, right after they tore down the tents they’d been camping in all week, and right before pizza and cake and the big gala. A magical time slot, if ever there was one.

I’d spent over a week preparing my workshop, and had assembled what I felt was the ideal combination of high-energy physical movement with quieter, reflective work that involved using the body, the right side of the brain, tapping into the subconscious, and channeling the inner guidance that would help carry the campers forward as writers after they exited the structured environment that had made them into full-time writers for a week.

For the first 30 minutes, I bombed. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Gord was there with his conga and 5 or 6 other cool percussion instruments, we brought the 86 kids into the huge room with high energy and excitement, I had everybody (or almost everybody) clapping and the kids at the front dancing … until they turned around and noticed the big kids at the back weren’t participating, and they stopped. At that point, my plans for making connections between mind and body, between the two hemispheres of the brain, and between writing and movement were lost; it became an aerobics class for one: me.

Writers, permit me a moment to soapbox: your stories do not come from your head (any more than money comes out of a machine in the wall, if you need a comparison). Stories are energy, and that energy is shaped and crafted and moulded into logical sequence by your brain, yes. But your stories are held in your body.

You live your experiences with your whole self, body, mind and spirit. Your mind is the instrument that helps you make sense of those experiences, but it is not the repository of them. If you have fought with your best friend, you have felt the burning knot in your stomach; you have felt your heart pound; you have felt your shoulders hunch; if you’re a guy, you may even have felt the pain and the shame of a blow to your body by your friend’s hand, or the simultaneously satisfying connection and sad shame of having punched your friend’s solar plexus with your own fist. You’ve felt the hot squeeze of tears behind your eyes.

The details of the memory of that experience lie in your body. Your mind can only give them words.

You need your body, I mean access to it, and to the experiences and memories it holds, in order to write. Particularly to write well. So those writers who fancy the bohemian life as a bingeing, smoking heroin addict living the cafe life will discover, probably too late, that they’ve destroyed everything that gave them their writing gift in the first place. Those writers who eschew physical activity with the mantra, “I’m an intellectual” will likewise suffer from a lack of access to their emotional and creative centres.

To put it another (maybe a nicer) way, if you’re stuck / blocked / frustrated / bored with your own words, get up and move. Put on Gwen Stefani or the Black Eyed Peas or Rihanna or whoever makes your shake your booty (and here, I age myself, with the Isley Brothers, Michael Jackson, Queen, Aretha Franklin and, well, Gwen Stefani). Wear yourself out. Then sit down and let your warmed-up, integrated, connected body do the writing for a while.

Or try this: put your pen in your non-dominant hand (if you’re a lefty, that’s your right hand, and vice-versa). Now, write. As fast as you can. Don’t stop to think. Ask yourself a question that needs answering before you can move on with your story, and let the other side of your brain — the one that just sits there most of the time, drumming its little grey fingers wondering when you’re going to try to tap into a little more than the 10% of the brain capacity you normally use — do the talking.

Science says:

• we only use 10% of our enormous brain capacity; even Einstein maybe used 15-18%
• the seat of creativity and the link to the subconscious mind rests in the right hemisphere of the brain
• right-handed people predominantly use the left side of the brain, which governs logic and rationality and reason (not creativity and imagination!)
• even left-handed people fall into predictable, repetitive patterns of thinking, learning and behaving that can be shaken up to interesting results by tapping into the left hemisphere of the brain through writing with their right hand

Psychologists and body-mind therapists say:

• there is something called muscle memory, whereby the body acts as a repository for our experiences and memories
• when we process the emotions associated with these experiences in a healthy way, there is little or no negative impact on the body
• when we shut off the emotional tap, particularly after a hurtful or traumatic experience (and we are all trained in this society to do just that), we create an energetic blockage in the body which, over time, can lead to illness or injury
• by writing / journalling / drawing / painting / talking with an empathic listener / expressing, it is possible to help release the hurt or trauma (or any experience, for that matter) stored in the muscles and tissues, and move back to health

No, I did not get into this level of detail with the campers. Maybe I should have. Maybe it would have helped. But I don’t think so. I just wish they’d been more willing to play along — not for my sake, but for theirs. They may have surprised themselves with what they discovered, and they most definitely would have walked away with two very powerful tools to add to their writing toolbox.

In fact, I think some of them did. They were a number of kids in the room who were into what was going on, although there was pressure from the back of the room to stay bored and withheld.

In any case, during the final 15 minutes, in which I told the story of the Shamanic journey that led me to meet my first medicine animal, and in which I led everyone on a similar journey in which they met theirs, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Almost everyone came back with some knowledge of their animal guide, and those who didn’t, I was able to talk to about trying again in a quieter, calmer, less pressured environment. There isn’t anyone on this earth without a guide, so I have every confidence those three I spoke to will find theirs. If they continue to be stymied, I hope they’ll contact me.

And so I learned something, too. Start with a story. One of my stories, something personal. Make a connection first, before I ask workshop participants to move or dance with me. We are so shut down physically, so much of the time, so “in our heads,” as the saying goes, that it has become an intimate request to ask someone to move their body for purposes other than walking, sitting, or Facebooking. And these kids and I, we had just met. We had no relationship. There may not have been distrust, exactly, but neither was there trust of this strange adult who was asking them to move, in front of her, in front of each other.

My next book in Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series, Gaia Wild, is all about what it means to be wild, even as a human being. For one thing, it means being in our bodies, the way all healthy animals are. Sitting, shoulders slumped, back rounded over, torso and pelvis and legs and feet forgotten, eyes staring, mind spinning and fingers typing — that is not “in the body.”

We cannot remember the Earth if we cannot re-member ourselves. Our bodies are made of her body. We treat her as we treat ourselves. If we think we can get along day to day without connection to our torsos and pelvises and legs and feet, then we believe she can get along just fine without her rivers and forests. But we are wrong. About both. We are wrong.

And I was wrong to think I could reverse that for 86 kids in an afternoon. But I’m learning. I’ll do better next time.

One last thing: no matter how off-the-rails any presentation goes, there is always at least one person in the room who gets it all, exactly as you intended. You hope you’re connecting with a majority of the kids, but sometimes, you’re doing what you’re doing for just one person. And that’s okay, too. One person can make all the difference. Yesterday, that person was Maria. Thank you, Maria. :)

As I sit up in bed to write, I can feel the bags under my eyes sag with the pull of gravity, their lower reaches brushing the tops of my shoulders. Okay, I exaggerate. But only slightly.

Sadie came in last night … no, pardon me, this morning … at 2:58 a.m. Frances checked in slightly later, squeaking through the cat door at 3:27 a.m. and ambling over to the feed bag for some crunchies. No remorse. They’re loving these hot summer nights. I, on the other hand, lay sleepless and bathed in sweat, part heat, part fear. Wanting to kill the little truants until, of course, they finally showed their soft, sweet, fuzzy faces, at which point all I could do was scoop them into my arms and rejoice that they were home safe.

8 p.m. tonight. My final word. This place’ll be a fortress. I don’t care if we all die of the heat. At least we’ll all die together. And then maybe I’ll get some sleep.

Do not try this at home.

Or anywhere else.

I moved 24 mallard ducklings from their inside brooders to their outdoor day pens yesterday morning. And if you’re wondering whether there’s some high-tech duckling-transport implement I used to do this, let me just say no, there isn’t. A cardboard kennel, a couple of towels, and my two trembling hands.

They’re small. These ones weren’t the teeny peepers, the three-inch-long, barely out of the egg babies. These were a hardy six inches long! Yeah, still small. They were grouped together in three brooders under heat lamps for the night, despite the warm weather. Their small size coupled with their speedy growth means it can be hard for them to keep fed, hydrated and warm enough without a mother’s down to snuggle under.

Ducklings are famous for the speed with which they imprint, or bond, with their parents(s), learning behaviour patterns and survival techniques very shortly after hatching. This poses a problem for ducklings who’ve been orphaned. On whom do they imprint?

If there are less than six ducklings in a brooder, we add a small mirror and a stuffy to their environment. Eventually, they will imprint on one another. That is, if we’re careful not to spend too much time with them, and especially handling them. If you’ve seen the movie Fly Away Home, you’ll know they can imprint on humans, too. But with the exception of the Canada Goose in Fly Away Home, and a few rare others, a bird that has imprinted on a human being can no longer live in the wild. It is literally a dead duck. Dead duck walking. Or flying.

That said, I’d still recommend seeing Fly Away Home. But I digress.

My point is, this speedy imprinting skill is the reason we have to handle the ducklings as little as possible. So I did my best to enjoy the miraculous sensation of holding a wild baby animal–okay, 24 of them–uh, on the fly.
When you stand above the brooder and open up the cover, the ducklings peep and huddle together in one corner. When you reach your hands in to scoop the first one up, they scatter, running madly off in all directions and peeping fit to beat the proverbial band. One or two of the larger ones may even try to bite you. It’s the fight or flight instinct up close and personal.

I usually decide which duckling I’m going to scoop each time I reach in; otherwise, it’s a scattershot effort that usually leaves me empty handed. The longer it takes me to get them all into the box, the longer they’re under stress, and the more profound the negative impacts. A small bird can die of a heart attack under extreme stress, and make no mistake, attempted capture, or over-long handling, by a perceived predator as relatively large as a human being  (no matter that human’s intentions) is extreme stress.

In most cases, when we handle a patient at the wildlife hospital, we wrap it in a towel making sure to cover its head. This technique serves a few purposes: it keeps its wings tucked, preventing possible strain or injury; it keeps its feet tucked, giving it something to perch on and the perception of stability; it keeps the oils in our skin away from its feathers; and it covers its head and eyes, reducing its stress level.

But with the ducklings, there are so many of them grouped together, and they move so fast in such a relatively large space, that using towels becomes prohibitive, and as I said before, time is of the essence with these tiny babies.

So I reach in, and my hands close over the body of one of the smaller ones as he tries to camouflage himself against a small group of three ducklings cowering in the corner of the brooder. I bite back the urge to offer whispers of reassurance, and hope that my benign intentions convey themselves energetically; my whispers will be perceived as a menacing hiss, my voice a threatening growl to a cornered wild animal.

I’ve got him. And oh, he feels wonderful. It is like holding the essence of life itself in your hands. He is so alive. Just recently born. Brand new to the earth. And every movement and sound, every beat of his heart, every last bit of fluff on the edges of the down at the tips of his feathers feels alive. I’d like to hold him forever.

My grandma used to tell my sister and me the story of a young boy she knew, one of her playmates as a child, who joined her in visiting the farm of a friend. One of the chickens’ eggs had just hatched, and the boy asked if he could hold one of the chicks. Granted permission, he picked one up, eyes going wide at the sensation, and wrapped his hands around the little animal. It was clear, my grandma said, that he loved it immediately.

But he loved it too much. He held it tightly to him, cuddling it, and before anyone realized what was happening, it died in his hands.

That story always horrified me. It still does. And obviously the impact of it stayed with my grandma for 80 or more years. But I understand that boy. I understand that feeling of loving something so instantly and so much that you could easily squeeze the life out of it. We do it with one another! We do it with our children. We do it, all the time, with animals. Witness the numbers of tigers and elephants kept as pets in North America. We are all, to one degree or another, wild animals. We need to love and be loved, yes, and we need to be free.
When we first receive our initial training as volunteers with the wildlife centre, we are told very bluntly that if we want to cuddle animals, we should volunteer with the SPCA. Dogs and cats, who are domesticated, will (for the most part) welcome the touching and the petting and the cuddling, and will very often return the affection. But to work with wild animals, you need to feel the same power of that affection but operate against your own instincts — to talk and reassure, to pet, to hold, to cuddle. You need to learn - and quickly - how to see the situation from the animal’s perspective. The animal is wild, born to a life outdoors and with a set of instincts designed to keep it as far from humans as possible in order to survive. You do your job; you send it benign, healing energy; you wish it well; you move along.

The duckling in my hands is running like a cartoon animal, legs and tiny buds of wings zooming and getting him nowhere. I’ve got him. I can feel his heart beating in the palm of my hand, tiny winglets brushing my fingers, neck extending as he peeps, trying to alert a long-dead parent that he is in danger. I place one hand under his also cartoon-like big webbed feet and keep my hold over the top of his body firm. He is strong, considering his size. And the energy in him feels like a super-bouncer (remember those?) or a coiled spring. If he were to escape my hands now, he’d fall five feet to the concrete floor. I hold on for dear life.
I take a moment - just a moment - to savour the sensation of his indescribable softness, and the life energy in my hands - and then I pop him into the kennel. After a few more indignant peeps, he settles down in the shadows against the soft towel, and awaits the arrival of his brothers and sisters.

Twenty-four times, I do this. And then seven baby gulls (who of course went into their own pen, nowhere near the ducklings!). Three separate pens of ducklings set out on the grass, partly in sun, partly in shade, outfitted with water towers and small swimming pools, and dishes of dry food and worms. In other words, heaven.

It took me the better part of my morning shift to accomplish the transfers, and to keep my charges supplied with water (they all drank their pools and drained their water towers four times in three hours). They looked happy — busy with their feeding and bathing and preening and foraging, fluffing themselves in the sunlight, or finding respite from the day’s heat in the cool shade. Call it projection or anthropomorphism if you like; they looked happy. And so did I.

Mmph.

7:02 a.m., Thursday, July 12. Have to be at the wildlife center in 58 minutes. Barely awake, too warm already. Another scorcher. Too hot to snooze any more. Trying something new. Early-morning blogging.

I had dinner with Nadine last night, at Stella’s on Commercial Drive. There was a free concert, four or five bands, in Grandview Park right next to the restaurant, and we sat at the open window, sampling tapas, guzzling water, people-watching, and melting in our seats.

And talking. We talked about everything, and at some point the subject of our blogs came up. After a few moments of polite technical talk, we both admitted we were struggling with our blogs. We didn’t know quite who we were writing for, or even why we were writing. We’d had ideas, originally, but things seemed to have changed, and we were, well, just a bit lost. Frankly, it was a relief to admit it, and an even bigger relief to hear someone else admit it, too.

Then she told me about the journals. An artist’s journals, a set of books she represents (she’s working as a sales rep for a literary press right now). Short, unemotional entries providing the details of her day-to-day process. “Today, I bought a 5 x 5 canvas and stretched it over a frame, then painted it blue.”

I could see the canvas … and the possibilities.

I hope one day in the not too distant future, you (whoever you are) will write and tell me you want to know more about this, or would like to know what I think of that. Meanwhile, I’m going to start each day (can I do it?) with a record of what I’m doing and a plan for the day. It feels manageable, and interesting - to me, at least. You? Let me know.

It’s 7:19 and I’m supposed to be at the wildlife center in 41 minutes. Dress, breakfast, saddle up, bike down. It’ll be a million degrees in the center today. Better take water.

This afternoon my plan is to organize all the pieces I’m bringing with me to the Canadian Book Camp at the VPL tomorrow. I’ve got a full costume, my presentation in a fairy tale folder I made myself, large sheets of foolscap for our three-minute biographies (written with the non-dominant hand!), candles and matches, river rocks for the touchstone ceremony. Must remember to call Gordon - he blew me away with an offer to drum live for the workshop. It’s going to be an afternoon to remember.

At 4:30 I have to be at 8 Rinks for my first physio appointment. Achilles tendonitis, right leg. Mild. I’m hoping with ultrasound and the right exercises I can get back to running soon. And dancing.

Then tonight I’ll rehearse tomorrow’s presentation, make sure I have everything I need, make a list for tomorrow.

Did I mention writing? No. I’m not writing much these days, other than making notes and sketching out presentations, creating curricula for the books, creating worksheets and handouts and give-aways.

I wonder if I’ll ever get to the point where I’m writing - really writing, working on a book, I mean - every day. There are writers who do. Do I want to be one of them? Is it a matter of discipline? Timing in one’s career? Personality? These are the things I’m interested in. I’ve always been fascinated to know the myriad ways various writers actually spend their days. You read their “self-help” books, how to write, how to create, blah blah blah. And I think yes, but what do you do first thing in the morning? How do you get out of bed and out from under the weight of all the ideas pressing down on you first thing in the morning? THEN what do you do? Do you write first thing? Do you stop to exercise? Does someone else make your meals? How many pages do you write in a day? Or words? Or do you try to finish a chapter? Or a narrative chunk? What about the rest of life - bills, doctor’s appointments, groceries? Really, truly, how do you spend your day?

It’s 7:27. I’m going to be late. Up, dress, smoothie, cereal, pack my panniers (bring water!), and I’m off.

Talk with you tomorrow. I’ll let you know how today goes.

An inspired angel named Joy Gugeler created a summer camp for kids and teens who love to read and write. Magic or what? The week-long camp (full-time hours, mind you! this isn’t for wimps!) features keynote author-speakers, author-presenters and workshop facilitators, time to read, time to write, professional critiques of your work, and publication of your best stuff in an anthology. To top it off, the week ends with a huge gala event that includes one last special author presentation, pizza dinner, and then a chance to read your own words to a riveted audience. All MC’d by yet another author/literary expert.

Now THIS is a camp I would have liked to attend, back in the day.

Lucky for me, I’ve been invited to present at this year’s camp!

I’ll be doing a special presentation, late Friday afternoon, July 13th, at the Vancouver Public Library, for the 100 or so campers, just before the start of the big gala evening. It promises to feature costume, drama, music and maybe even a little magic! One of many great reasons to sign up!

CWILL’s James McCann (Pyre) will be leading workshops, and The Vancouver Sun’s Amy O’Brien will, too. It’s never too early to network! Here’s a list of the keynote speakers for this year:

1. Dennis Foon - Longlight Legacy Trilogy
2. Julie Burtinshaw - The Freedom of Jenny
3. Theresa Lalonde - CBC News reporter
4. Mary Schendlinger - Prepare to be Amazed
5. Carrie Mac - The Beckoners

There are groups for 11-13 year olds, as well as for 14+, and if the $185 camp fee looks a little steep, there are even scholarships available.

CLICK HERE for more information about how to get involved, either as a camper or as a volunteer!

If you’re not from around Vancouver, don’t despair - Joy has “franchised” the Book Camp idea and there are other camps around the country, with local authors as the presenters and workshop leaders.

If you’re interested in setting up a camp in your community, click on the link above and contact the camp director for more information.

Hope to see you on the 9th!