Today's episode will be kind of embarrassing because I'll be sharing with you
my experience as an educational background that got me to where I am now, but I will be incorporating into it old
Pictures and video clips if I can get them to work from when I was a kid or teenager
So that will be embarrassing but it's part of the story
So I feel like I've got to include them. You got to move right now?
I will also be sharing with you the second YouTube channel that I've had since I was a teenager. It's not active anymore
But I've never shared it before so this will be interesting
Anyway, enjoy today's story about how I got to where I am.
*introduction card*
Go dancing?
Good girl!
Good dancing! What a pretty girl!
You're a.. (smooches) you're a good girl.
As I'm sure you already well know, I have always been an animal lover.
It started with cats when I was really young and then, once I realized I was allergic to cats and dogs, I had to take
an alternative route if I wanted to continue having pets. So when I was in fifth grade at ten years old
I received my very first parakeets named Sunny and Timmy and they were the gateway animal into the
exotic pet world basically. Shortly afterwards, I got a couple of cockatiels named Katie and Kyle. Kyle was really cool
he knew how to talk. And when I was 14, I kind of jumped in size and got my first macaw.
It was a green winged macaw. He was a disabled bird. He only had a couple of toes
His name was Buddy and he was the bird that got me hooked on macaws.
I think they're my favorite type of bird to work with. They are just incredible animals.
Also at 14 years old is when I started my first job. I worked at an ice cream store called Maggie Moose,
they still have my favorite ice cream that I've ever had before.
I worked there for a couple of years but then when I was 16, I started working at a cookie shop instead.
I was a professional cookie decorator at Cookies by Design.
In case you couldn't already tell I have a huge sweet tooth,
so working at both a specialty ice cream store and a specialty cookie store,
I consumed way more sugar than I should have
on a daily basis. But it was so delicious that calories didn't count
I figured.
At 16, working at Cookies by Design, a couple of my, like, pet ownership things changed and I no longer had my green winged macaw
or my cockatiels. My parakeets had passed away a while beforehand, but instead I, at 16 years old,
adopted Cheyenne I got her from a breeder's house. A 'breeder'.
She tried pairing up birds and it just didn't work out because she didn't provide them with very good homes.
And Cheyenne was plucking even before I got her
If you look at old pictures of her you can definitely tell that there's more feathers from back then when I.. for the first few
years. I had her and slowly over time
she has fewer feathers on her chest and her legs and this, yes, could partially be due to her feather plucking habit
which was originally caused by stress from her old owner and just became a bad habit like chewing on your nails
that
has maybe gotten worse over the years but I think most of her now lack of feathers is due to the fact that the follicles
are no longer functioning properly you see when a parrot plucks their feathers for too long those follicles run out of feathers to make
essentially and the a... follicles just don't work anymore and no more feathers grow from them. So all of these follicles on her crop
show all these follicles were dead before I got her
so that's why she's never had feathers on her crop same with her back if you can see that
there's never been feathers on her back since I've had her the ones that have changed the most would be her chest feathers and that's
Because they do kind of grow in still, but they're slowly dying off too.
So it's unfortunate
but I'm getting a progressively more naked bird as I have her but your personality makes up for it. your a good girl.
I still love you by the time I was 17 years old. I had also acquired a military macaw named Oliver
He was the goofiest macaw I have ever owned
he was a really fun bird and I also acquired a Congo African Grey.
And African Grey parents are very smart birds
I actually purchased mine as a freshly weaned baby from a wonderful breeder. I named am oscar and he knew how to say over a
Hundred words and phrases he could count the ten
He knew tricks. I did a lot of clicker training with him to do like basketball or ring toss things like that and
I was so obsessed with parrots at this time of my life that I
would record him doing his tricks like the ring-toss or the bowling and I would upload those to a little Channel
I had called Macawlover2
Where you can still see today,
these really old poor quality videos of my African Grey and the other parrots I've had in the past
however, you don't have to go check those out because like I said
They're really poor quality videos.
And don't subscribe because its not an active channel anymore.
The last big thing that happened when I was 17 years old is that I left my cookie decorating
Job, and I started working for Petsmart. I worked in the pet care department and that job actually helped me pay for college.
I graduated... let me back up. I graduated high school in 2009 and
during that time. I got my first year of college done with through the PSEO program if you're in high school or junior high
I highly recommend if your state offers that taking advantage of the PSEO program because it's post-secondary enrollment option
I believe it stands for if I remember correctly. But basically it's free tuition and free books while you're in high school
It's like a nice perk to getting a head start on college. I completed an entire year, which saved me not only a year of
money from college tuition, but also an entire year of studying by the time I graduated from high school
anyway after I graduated high school I continued working at Petsmart and that's actually when I
Met my first boyfriend named Ed who I am now
Married to I married a customer, Ed was shopping at Petsmart
He had recently acquired a blue and gold macaw of his own
so we met over parrots and of course
He was referred to me being the bird nerd at Petsmart
And I gave him the advice he needed to take care of it and we just kind of clicked from there
He likes to tease me about it all the time because I married a customer. After high school
I went on to complete my now second year of college at a local Community College just to get my Generals done
And once that was completed I transferred to the University of Minnesota where I finished my bachelor's degree in fisheries and wildlife
with an emphasis on wildlife so I took classes including
Zoology and dendrology mammalogy ornithology because I was obsessed with birds
Ornithology as the study birds and when I graduated I luckily found a job with the Minnesota DNR as an interpretive naturalist
however, it was just a temporary or a
seasonal job basically at this position
I worked at a specific state park throughout the summer and
I had to create programs to connect Park visitors to Natural Resources in a hands-on and engaging way
So this is where I started learning how to do programs initially on.. and I loved it
I really liked doing these programs whatever subject they were about I taught about Eagles
I taught about trees I taught about geology a lot at the specific Park
I was at and my favorite program I did was really anything that included wildlife or actual animals
It was at this time
that Ed and I had recently acquired our very first snake which was actually his snake
It was an albino ball python named Athena and I used her in some of my very first rudimentary
reptile programs as a naturalist, even though being a naturalist was an awesome job, and I loved it
It was sadly only a seasonal position
So I worked as a naturalist during the summer months when the park was busiest and then during the fall winter and spring I worked
at Petsmart again. I did this for two years and unfortunately
after two years that was the cap with this position with the DNR
It was a temporary job
Where you could only work two summers before having to relocate to a different park or finding another job all together
Not wanting to just keep relocating every two years I decided I really needed to pursue something that was more
permanent and year-round. So what I did in the meantime while I was searching for this perfect job
Well as I went back to Petsmart full-time in a management position, and Ed I got married and bought a house
But because of the craziness in working a couple of jobs
I also worked part-time during this like weird transition period I worked as an aquarium cleaner for like senior living homes
It was just nuts. I was working so many hours
I could not give all the attention I needed to to the three parrots that I had
so I found good homes for the military macaw and the African Grey but
We kept Cheyenne she was the ring bearer at our wedding after all. You're always gonna be in our family
But now is when the reptiles come into play.
Shortly after moving into our house Ed and I started attending local Herpetological Society
Meetings and at our very first meeting we adopted or I adopted my very first snake which was Janet this bull snake
I still have him today. It's why I have quite a soft spot for him
He start to get pretty old and he's in Zombie shed mode right now, but he'll be fine for today's video
Anyway, we adopted him and that's when I started like the gears started moving and I was like, hmm
I wonder if I could still continue a naturalist type position while working with reptiles at the same time
You see while working at Petsmart throughout the years. I started to realize how much easier reptiles are to take care of than birds
They I mean what other animal can you feed once a week or once every other week and get away with it, right?
I also quickly discovered after working at Petsmart that snakes don't chew on your furniture or squawk
Talk about you Cheyenne or need attention or poop every 20 minutes. So reptiles are starting to look really good for me.
So that's kind of why we transitioned to
reptiles from birds and then I started putting two and two together and I was like
I really liked doing those programs for the park and I really like reptiles
So I wonder if I can make my own job where I'm teaching people about
Reptiles at various parks libraries Scout troop meetings and so forth, but then I found the perfect job opportunity for me
It was a management position at a cave
I'm not gonna say the exact cave because things didn't end very well and they probably wouldn't appreciate me calling them out
But I worked at a cave that was local to my area and it was awesome and had great
potential as a lifelong career
basically
I was a naturalist but underground I was like within touching distance from bats that were hibernating within the cave. It was so cool
I gave cave tours,
I taught people about geology and how caves are formed and stalactites and stalagmites
Which by the way stalactites hold tight to the ceiling and stalagmites might grow up or they might get stepped on
That's how you remember the difference. Anyway, sorry cave naturalist coming back. Anyway, it was a great job
However, the management there and my coworkers were
Horrible to work with. I went home crying every day
because of how much they would belittle me and yell at me for being a new manager a new employee and you know
I decided that if I am this upset about a position
It doesn't matter how cool of a job it is if I am crying on my way home
It's not worth putting up with so I debated for a little while what I was gonna do
I had already left Petsmart to take on this cave management position and thankfully Ed was there for me and he encouraged me to
Go off on my own and start up snake discovery
And that's where it all originated from was Ed encouraging me to do the job of my dreams
I spent the next three months creating a curriculum
For my program that I would travel with as well as gathering reptiles that I would use during it and then I became a registered
LLC things were kind of slow at first just like any business starting off
Especially a weird unique business like snake discovery educational reptile programs
But I spent the first year just advertising and getting my name out there and then by the second year
Things really started taking off and this was when I realized this is something that I could do full-time after these programs
Say at like a library
I would often have families approach me asking how to take care of the animal
During my show that they fell in love with like say the fat tail gecko everyone seemed to fall in love with or the milk
Snake that I would bring and I would answer some other questions
But I had I was kind of on a schedule so and I still am
I have to like take off to my next program right away
so I started feeling bad that I couldn't answer all of their questions and that's when I was like
Well, what if I could direct them to a video I made on youtube
So it's facts and recommendations that I agree with because I'm making the video
So that's really where the channel started was giving me an easier
opportunity to
Teach people about reptiles after a show by just giving them a link to a video that I made that they can learn from
But it turns out people I guess around the world wanna also learn about reptiles
So the YouTube channel took off more than I was expecting
And now it's a major part of my day-to-day life and it's been a lot of fun. So I kind of juggle the
YouTube channel and my programs on a day to day basis I also
When I was in college started up exotic pet Expos in the Minnesota and Wisconsin area
So I'm an event coordinator for those but that's a whole
other story for another day
I kind of have three jobs YouTube snake discovery programs and the fairs or Expos
And those are the three things that keep me busy every day, but that's kind of the story of Emily
It was quite a journey, but I will say every job I had wether
it was a good experience or a bad one taught me something new and it was
a stepping stone that I needed to take in order to make it to where I am now
So I'm thankful for each and every one of those jobs whether I liked the position or not
I really wish the cave would have worked out. I mean now I'm happier
I think where I am now, but the cave had great potential
It's just too bad that the managers were the way that they are that just goes to show you though that your co-workers
Can make or break a job. I kind of only worked there for a week and a half
This is candy corn by the way
He is an albino Nelson's milk snake that I picked up from the last Tinley reptile show when I initially got him
He was Wiggly as all get-out and he was wild but look how much better. He's gotten guys
I've been working with him to trade him in to do programs someday, and he's doing really well
Anyway, that kind of covers all the steps that I had to take to get to where I am today
It was a crazy ride, but well worth it in the end. I couldn't be happier with what I'm doing for a living nowadays
Thanks for watching today's video. I'm sorry if it was kind of boring
But for those of you who were wondering this video is for you. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time