Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Baby Steps

Some things seem to take so long.  We filed our initial articles of incorporation last week.  That mean's we are an Inc.  Or we will be once approved by the state.  This is the first of several steps that are all paperwork to file.  Next we will be applying for our educational permit.

That permit will give us the permission to take our animals around to schools, libraries, etc to talk to people about them.  It will also exempt us from the exotic pet ban that Gov. Strickland signed into law in Dec.  As private citizens we would not be allowed to buy or otherwise acquire wild animals.  The education permit allows us to purchase healthy animals that can be on display or taken to presentations.

We are also applying for a rehabilitation permit that will allow us to take in orphaned animals and nurture them to health and release them.

Finally we are applying for 501(c)3 status.  Or tax exempt status.  This is the big one.  Once we receive this we can start to apply for grants, and seek out major donors.  In the meantime, any donations would not be tax deductible.

We are trying to get all this paperwork completed and approved so that we can seek donations and grants to help us get the land we need to expand.  We have a few more animals coming this spring, and we have room for those.  But we can't get any bigger until we can build bigger spaces for groups of animals, and of course more species.  We have goals of getting bobcats, mountain lions, bison, wolves, coyotes.

And we need help on the website.  I am doing it myself and don't know how to do what I want to do.  I want a very impressive site and am afraid that I'm not going to do it justice.  The website is still under construction, although we have a landing page, www.noahsarcsanctuary.org.  Let us know what you think so far and keep checking back to see how it grows.

But all these dreams seem so distant sometimes.  And each application can take forever to be approved.  And the whole time I am holding my breath to make sure it isn't declined.  I want it all to happen now, and am grateful that it is happening.  I'm just not feeling very patient today.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

New Website coming soon

This is a short entry.  Noah's Arc Sanctuary is getting a new website.  I am building it myself, so I'm not sure how long it is going to take.  But I have some experience, and an occasional free minute to work on it.

I have some design ideas, but I'm open to suggestions.  If you have any ideas of what you think our website should look like, or include, let me know.  We will have information about our animals of course.  And once we have our larger space, we will have information on visiting us and our animals.  We will have a section of the site for kids.

If you think there is anything else we should include, let me know.  If it is something more technical, like a game app, or member's only section, let me know if you have any experience with that, or if you know where I can get some assistance.

I will post an entry with a link to the site once it is ready.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Winter Weather

Is it just me, or has this winter been colder, with more snow and ice?  We've had a very rough time keeping water for the outside animals.  Smokey, who loves to play with her water, and "wash" her food, has not been able to enjoy these activities.  She has a bowl that is frozen solid with just enough fresh water added each day.  Both Smokey and Roseanne have sheets of ice on the bottom of their cages.

Last week we were hit with the ice storm.  We got about an inch of ice all over everything.  We lost power for 3 days and had several branches come down in the yard. One almost took out a section of fence around the chickens and ducks.  Fortunately, all the animals are fine and power has been restored.  Things are back to normal (for us).

During the power outage, we were asked several times if we were staying home during the outage.  Well, yes, we stayed home.  The fact is that we have 4 kids, 4 dogs and all the outside animals who need daily attention.  So the fact is that we can't just pick up and leave for a few days if we loose power.  It doesn't help that we are gay have some issues with family over that.  See Donny's Blog for more on that one.

To that end, we now have a small propane heater, and a portable generator to keep a few essentials going in the event of the next outage.  Now, when we get the new property, we will need a backup generator, since being without power is likely to last longer than 3 days.  We will likely use electric fencing for some of the animals too, so power failures won't be an option.

Next winter, we need to have water heaters so there is no need to break up ice daily.