2025 Recap

A year later, and I have still never met anyone quite like LeeAnn. A woman with a feral ferocity for nurturing the song-birds and land rodents that your average corn-fed Missourian shoots off their back patio.

Another year, another baby season. About the only thing that had changed was that this go-around, LeeAnn was operating on a full six hours of sleep (over the last five days). I consider this a vast improvement. This year, we tackled the possum enclosure. The mother and her babies (enough to rival that of a Catholic household) had recently been moved out and reintroduced to nature. They were kind enough to leave behind about a month’s worth of urine-soaked litter. As we overturned dried litter chips, we were hit with ammonia fumes strong enough to warrant a raid by DHS (heaven forbid a stack of federal agents ever wind up on LeeAnn’s porch). Cleaning up after the possums made hosing down the crates look glamorous.

Also on this year’s To-Do list was cleaning the shelter that is used for Wintering the animals undergoing rehabilitation. The shelter had been breached by rats over the Winter, and was littered with rat droppings. Not wanting to risk exposing my friends to hantavirus, I inform them that I’m going to knock this one out on my own (I reassure them that its way worse than whatever they are doing, which in hindsight was a very suspicious thing to say). I filled a family-sized trash bin full of nasties and fed it to the ever-hungry sinkhole.

The approach of rain had us pivot to cleaning out the garage full of donations and storage supplies. It is cold. We are drenched and covered in wild animal nastiness. The support staff are chain-smoking cigarettes. Morale is low. We finally finish. LeeAnn pops out of her house with two baby raccoons eager to thank us for our hard work. They are adorable. Its cold out, and the racoons keep trying to crawl into our shirts to stay warm.

Meeting the animals was unforgettable and instantly made everything worth it.

Oh yeah, the carpentry team missed their chance to meet baby raccoons last year (the meet & greet was a welcome surprise). After a full year of FOMO, they finally got their chance.