Big Feed

Day 3 at Mission:Wolf

     What another fantastic day! Work began right away as usual. As soon as we unloaded the van we were set to work unloading cement bags. Those things are HEAVY! But yet again, with all of us working together, the work went quickly. 

     We then split up into two groups - a group that helped with daily feeds and a group that mucked out the horses stalls and filled their water. I was in the latter. Because the pipe had frozen, we had to cart down the water from the top of the hill. A few of our group was in charge of that while the rest of us cleaned. Luckily, our job finished so fast that while the rest were getting more water, we got to relax with the horses, Lady Bird and Grinder. They are both rescues. Their owners wanted to donate them as wolf food but because they were perfectly healthy, Mission:Wolf wouldn’t do it and took them in. 

     

Sophie hugging Lady Bird and Grinder

     Now the interesting part of every Wednesday at Mission:Wolf began. Wednesday is big feed day! The wolves were definitely ready for their big meal of the week. To mimic the wild, the wolves are only given one big meal a week accompanied by small daily feeds. The day before, we had helped move the meat out of the freezers to allow it to thaw by morning. However, that morning, the facility was called by someone in need of putting down a sick steer. So they went and received the steer and we got the lovely job of butchering it. 

     Some people were absolutely thrilled, I, being a vegetarian, was not. The butchering was optional. However, I forced myself to stay and watch for the experience. But watch is all I did, unlike the majority of my group who actually helped with the cutting. It really was something though. The steer they butchered was so sick and it was evident when they began cutting and water began pouring out. Even the staff was amazed at what was going on. This in a way made me feel much better about the situation. The steer ended its suffering and didn't go to waste. Mission:Wolf is one of the best recycling programs around for farmers in the Westcliffe area. 

     About two thirds of the way through, I had to leave. So along with a few others, I went and helped do more firewood. The wood we moved from the previous days now needed cut and stacked. We got into such a groove that we didn’t even realize that the rest of the group had finished the steer and went to lunch. We joined them and had another great lunch with the staff. This time, instead of a nap, the staff taught us how to play hackey sack. This has apparently become a very popular staff tradition. They said that most games they can’t play around the wolves because the competitive energy hypes up the wolves. Hackey sack has no losers and the wolves love the energy when a big group plays. Pretty soon the small group of us that started playing turned into both schools and the entire staff playing, even Kent got in on the action. We were supposed to get a full hack (every person hitting the hackey sack) before we went back to work. Well, with around thirty people playing we had to call it quits and eventually get back to work. 

     Before feeding, we all went in for a wolf visit with the three ambassador wolves before they got distracted by their food. Once the cutting, weighing, and visits were finished, it was time to bring the food to the wolves. You could tell they were excited and anxious for their food. We were put into small groups with various staff members. Then it was a free for all, chucking the meat over the fence. Again, I watched and became photographer because I wasn't going to touch the meat. Thank goodness that it was a steer instead of a horse, that would have been way to tough to watch. Despite my queasy stomach and gory scenes, it really was a great opportunity to see something out of the ordinary and witness the importance of such a valuable circle of life.      

Maggie

Sophie and Connor with Maggie and Zeab

Illiana eating her big meal

     So goes the most eventful part of the day. Then it was back to the normal work. We now had to clear the branches that we piled up from the fire mitigation work done the day before. Unfortunately, trucks couldn’t reach the pile so arm load by arm load we walked the pile down the trail and made a new pile away from harm. As soon as we finished we found Kent and helped load old telephone poles into the truck to make a new horse enclosure. We then proceeded to begin building said fence. However, the day slipped away before we had hardly begun and we had to leave after putting only about one post in the ground. 

     We hiked back up the hill and before heading out, we all bought wolf tees with the money we fundraised. They’re a great souvenir to have plus most of the proceeds goes directly to the facility. In fact, we’re all wearing them on our plane ride home. After we all had our shirts, we drove back to Hermit Basin, ate some delicious tacos, and went to sleep for another early morning.