Poelzl works alongside psychotherapists (but refrains from dealing with Freudian analysts, explaining, “I like to work in present time”)  who refer their clients to her, though she also advertises through her personal website.

Poelzl has worked in the field of human sexuality for nearly a quarter century and has been independently (and steadily) supporting herself as a sex surrogate since becoming certified fifteen years ago.  She is one of the few remaining in this fringe line of, yes, legal sex work. There is no guarantee for “full sexual service” but as Poelzl admits, “It’s certainly not just hand-holding.”

Her $300 per-hour rate is not covered by any health insurance plan (nor will it likely ever be) and she estimates that she’s seen between 300 and 500 clients over the years, many who are in their 50s. A sexual surrogacy session is usually two hours, with an average of fifteen sessions, but there have been notable exceptions:  Poelzl’s most committed client is going on his 94th visit.

She feels “safe and proud” of the work, though admits to feeling affected at times. “It’s so tricky when you are dealing with sex — boundaries can get blurred. It can be hard to date.”

The International Professional Surrogate Association (IPSA) is the only existing organization that certifies sexual surrogate therapists. Prostitution and fear of legal repercussions have taken a toll on the profession. Consequently, Poezl’s line of work is both highly risky and thinly populated.  “We are a dying breed,” she says.

How did you become a sex surrogate?

I was a volunteer with the San Francisco sex  information switchboard. Sex therapy and sexual dysfunction was part of the training. A colleague talked about sex surrogate work and I was immediately intrigued.

I was a massage therapist and instructor  in 1978, and I’ve always been able to help people relax and accept their bodies. I was going to sex parties, too — I was engaging with other people, not so much intercourse. I was soon able to engage with people who I wasn’t necessarily attracted to. In combination, knowing that I could do this sexually made me feel like I was qualified, even before I went through training with IPSA in ’95. The day after becoming certified, I got started. It’s the kind of thing you have to have a lot of life experience to do. It was a ten-day intensive training. We are screened, gave our history and documented just why we felt we were qualified. Some people didn’t pass the test.

Can you describe the process?

A lot of people think, “sex, sex, sex!”  But it involves less sex than with an entertainment sex worker. Certainly it’s not just hand-holding. I work with psychotherapists who refer their clients to me — but I don’t work with Freudian analysts. Sex surrogate work is about a relationship with less focus on psychological processing. It’s helping a person relax and talk about their feelings. I teach them about touching, body language, how to show confidence…once you get some, that is.

We then get into nudity. People tend to get impatient, they want to just get to the good stuff. But just because I am an expert doesn’t mean I know everything about my client. When I have a new partner, I’m learning their body, so hand-guiding or making sounds is key. Sometimes it can be a little clinical and not always sexy. You are learning something, so communication is needed. I’ll teach them things like initiating touch and sensual skills first, and then “How do you know when a woman wants to be kissed?” Some of it is role play — like being on a date.

How much of the time is physical?

With some clients, there’s less actual sex. Some people can be touch-phobic and very anhedonic — they literally won’t feel pleasure. There can be a lot of touching, but it’s gradual. I use a lot of sensate focus: concentrating on sensations, and taking turns giving and receiving. During sex, people are touching each other at the same time…we work up to that.

How do you rate success?

Some particular sexual dysfunctions can be fixed. But it depends on the issue.  Some issues are easier to clear up than others.

Does your work kill your own sex drive?

First of all, I am older, so I don’t have a sex drive. Most clients are over 45; some are 60 or 70. Baby boomers still want to have sex. I’ve learned a lot about elder sex.

Feelings on Viagra?

When Viagra first came out, I thought it was great but I was worried it would put us surrogates out of business. I have clients who were prescribed drugs for erectile dysfunction and have used the drugs in conjunction with their work with me. Usually it’s not just a physical problem — and using these drugs tend to annoy post-menopausal wives who are happy that they are having less sex and suddenly their husbands want a lot of sex. For them, it’s a burden.

Have you ever refused to work with a client?

There have been a few over the years. They needed more psychotherapy, and I felt they weren’t ready for sexual surrogate work.

Have you worked with any couples?

I had a couple in their 30′s who were in an arranged marriage. While they were very fond of each other they were having trouble; they had no previous sexual experience. They walked in, took their clothes off and said “we want help!” and I pretty much taught them body mechanics. They were desperate and willing. It was a matter of teaching them about…adjusting.

I imagine that there might be some clients you’ve had whose partners aren’t as open to sex surrogate therapy?

Yes. I have worked with clients who have partners that are uncomfortable, sure…

Then would you encourage them to disclose their surrogate therapy to their partner?

I don’t really care if a client tells their partner or not. But what does concern me when they choose not to is, will they feel guilty and not be able to connect with me on the level that’s needed in order to work through their issues?

Is sex surrogate therapy a viable way to have an affair?

I think there are easier ways to do it, like hiring a call girl. That’s a much quicker way to have a good time.

How would you protect yourself from a jealous lover?

Well I have a confidentiality agreement. I spell it all out in a paragraph, differentiating my work from prostitution. It’s not a contract for sex:

“CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT: I understand that the surrogacy sessions are for the purpose of expanding my ability to feel physical pleasure and emotional fulfillment through greater intimacy and increased sensation and to overcome sexual dysfunction.  I acknowledge this session series is not for the purpose of sexual gratification or entertainment and may or may not include sexual intercourse, manual, or oral stimulation.  I understand and will abide by the above agreements.”

Do you allow clients to keep in touch with you down the road, once the therapy is over? Who decides when the therapy has run its course?

As with any relationship, it’s unusual to end it well. Generally, when there is a lot of sex in our sessions, we are done. I work with the client in order to acknowledge that it was a professional experience, but I usually have a period of no contact with a client for a couple of months. They can come back if they need maintenance, but when I get cards and emails from people who end up married, it’s always nice. There are some people who need maintenance, and it helps them to have some outlet.

Where do you see sex surrogate therapy headed in the next, say, five years?

We are a dying breed. I think some of that has to do with the fear of liability that psychotherapists have; there are people who think this work is excellent, but fewer therapists want to risk their licenses. Maybe I’ll look into training people. We need young blood!

Photo credit:  Christopher G. Boyd

These days, dog owners who pamper their pets can easily wind up in the poorhouse. Within the past two years, Americans have spent nearly $41 billion on their furry friends. Today, we have designer dog furniture, cringe-worthy doggy couture (accessories not included), canine country-clubs (equipped with spas).  In this time of economic downturn, it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that some pets live much more lavishly than many of our fellow citizens. From designer doghouses to organic chow — we are definitely going to the dogs.

For those who’ve bought into the dog market, there’s now organic grub to share with your companion. The steadfast demand for “conscientious canine cuisine” is enough to keep Brooklyn-based Pet Chef Michelle Lewis in business. Since ’06 she’s been running her pet food company, “ScooterFoods” from her two-bedroom apartment. She’s up by 4AM each day to begin cooking an average of 100lbs of homemade dog grub. She launched her company  on her own, without a loan or corporate backing, and insists that every ingredient in her dog food is organic. And since shelf life for home-cooked canine food is a mere two weeks, the upkeep is no easy feat: carrying 5olb bags of spelt flour, quinoa, oats and nutritional yeast — not to mention lifting 30 gallon pots filled with vegetables and beef hearts — is strenuous.

“I hear all of these stories of small-business people having overnight success--it’s demoralizing and just not how it works,” Lewis stressed. She markets her food in parks, cafes and local pet-shops and says that word-of-mouth has been most effective. From handing out her homemade biscuits on the sidewalk, to hanging around dog shows and shelters — it’s a full-time commitment. “It could be a hit reality series,” Lewis joked.

Some of her doggy dishes include: salmon with vegetables, beef with vegetables, and tofu with lentils — all of which are “human grade.” Yes, that means it’s safe to try the chow alongside your pet, Lewis assured me.

Will a dog really devour tofu? Apparently so. She concocted a vegetarian formula for the growing segment of owners who chose to feed their dogs a no-meat diet. And while Lewis does not agree with this “philosophy,” as she calls it, it’s always a top seller.

In order to test that organic dog food is truly of “human” grade, I sampled a variety of  the fancy chow alongside a  brave friend. My fellow taste tester took a liking to it — so much that she’d serve it to her boyfriend as a “reward.”

While it’s edible in the respect that we did not end up in the ER, I wouldn’t recommend it, except for the “Tofu with Lentils” dish which could easily be sold at Whole Foods.

Here’s a video of us:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDkWP4kbWOM

(Video Filmed and Edited by Oliver Noble; Produced by Oliver Miller)

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Below, the personal diary of Michelle Lewis, Pet Food Chef…

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Dog Days: The Dairy of Michelle Lewis

4:30AM: Woke up early today to make several batches of ScooterSnacks and Scooter Food.

5:00AM: Ahh, the smell of liver in the morning… delicious. I think my stomach has become a lot tougher since having to handle pounds and pounds of beef heart, liver and chicken.

5:15AM: Kitchen Workout: Lifting 30 gallon pots filled with vegetables as well as 50lb sacks of flour, oats and nutritional yeast.

5:30AM: I start with the meat, cooking it over low heat. Next, I add vegetables which are cooked in the broth. And finally, the grain is cooked in the vegetable/meat broth.

6:00AM: Start making the day’s first batch of ScooterSnacks. While they bake, go through email, responding to ScooterFood inquiries while petting Ben, my dog, and eating breakfast. I’m partial to sardines in the morning (seriously).

6:45AM: Make a delicious coffee. I don’t buy coffee out — it’s too expensive — and small things help me save for ScooterFood expenses. Take snacks out of the oven and wash dishes.

7:10AM: Go to the park with Ben for some exercise and give out ScooterSnacks to the dogs there. That’s how I market ScooterSnacks, and it has worked well. I also sell them through a local coffee shop (it’s a very symbiotic relationship).

7:45AM: Time to head home. I’ve been pretty much assaulted by every dog at the park, from Saul the mastiff with baby teeth to Snarky the 14 inch high, two-foot-long frankendog.

8:30AM: Take subway to my day job. I’m going to be very late today.

9:00AM: Arrive at work; switch to academic mode.

12:30PM: Lunchtime! Go through ScooterFood emails and pay bills, which I can do, since I received a long overdue freelance fee (To make ends meet, I also do relocation consulting, helping people from overseas settle into and get to know NYC).

1:10PM: Fast update of Scootersnacks.com and ScooterFood.com website news.

3:30PM: Order ScooterFood/ScooterSnacks ingredients online. While slightly more expensive than at bulk and wholesale stores, I can at least avoid the expense of renting the Zipcar I’d need to carry 50 lb bags of spelt flour, quinoa, and other ingredients. (Or adding the cost of knee replacement into my product line…)

4:30PM: Get on the subway and head towards home.

5:00PM: Kiss and cuddle Ben. Then out for a pee-pee walk.

5:50PM: Take and make some calls for ScooterFood orders.

6:30PM: Work on ScooterFood’s shopping online site — which I’ve been procrastinating for about a year!

7:30PM: Ben gives me a stink eye. I finally feed him.

8:00PM: Last walk of the evening.

8:20PM: Update ScooterSnack sales. I start making a banner ad for an upcoming event, but my focus is starting to drift.

8:45PM: I indulge in some crappy TV and cuddle with Ben. (It’s not a big date night.)

10:00PM: Sleep.

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In an age of ballooning obesity, it’s hard to swallow the fact that gluttony is now an official sport. The professional “gladiators of the esophagus” are represented by The IFOCE (International Federation of Competitive Eating) and they train, compete and receive sponsorships (nearly $350,000 in prize money annually) for their Major League Eating.

Jason “Crazy Legs” Conti ranks 17th in the competitive eating circuit and holds one of the federation’s most stomach churning records: downing 168 oysters in 10 minutes. Conti’s long-term gastro-goal, however is much more lofty: “Competitive Eating as an exhibition sport in the Olympics.”

Conti began eating competitively nearly a decade ago, and has more on his plate than a preposterous amount of food: He graduated from John Hopkins, starred in a documentary, “Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating” and has worked a bevy of jobs from nude model to window washer to screenwriter. He’s also currently the beverage manager of two “upscale” strip clubs in Manhattan.

“Instead of being On the Road, I’m on the plate,” says the self-described “eatnik.” “I consider myself honoring the long tradition of Jack Kerouac and The Beats and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters – This is my chance to see the country, one bite at a time.”

Conti recently chronicled 48 hours during his last cameo-competitive eating appearance, The Philadelphia Wingbowl, considered the Superbowl for competitive eaters.

Thursday: The Wing Bowl

Wing Bowl consists of tailgating, and then packing the Wachovia Center with 20,000 inebriated Philly meatheads. The parade features twenty-five amateur chicken wing eaters (who partake in 32-minute three-round eating contests — the winner gets a car), their entourages, crudely-constructed floats, and “Wingettes” – local strip club strippers and morally casual women. The  sponsors determine Wing Bowl to be a success as long as no one dies. I have attended for the past five years. Each year, I pray I never have to return.

4:33 PM

I am on the frigid corner of 34th and 8th about to board the Bolt Bus to Philly. The bus is about to pull out without my traveling companion, Eric “Badlands” Booker. Booker is a fellow competitive eater, and at over 400 pounds, he cuts an impressive swath. Despite his man mountain status, he is sweet on the world, like the universe’s largest Hershey kiss. His tragic flaw, however, is that he is notoriously late – sometimes by three days. As the bus is about to depart, Badlands boards huffing and puffing.

5:33 PM

I brought sandwiches for Badlands and I from Salumeria Biellese, a hole-in-the-wall French and Italian charcuterie place that acts like a meat beacon to my stomach. I have a spicy sopresetta with provolone and a capicola with mozzarella. I also brought a dried fennel boar sausage as a gift for Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti, another competitive eater and aspiring celebrity chef.

Badlands and I split the sandwiches and discuss Jay Z’s new album, movies, and the upcoming Catfish Eating World Championship. It is a pleasant ride.

6:33 PM

We are dropped off along the highway of the Cherry Hill Mall and await a pick-up from US Male, the crawfish-eating champ of the world. He is also a NJ mail carrier, but chooses to spell his nickname referring to his Y chromosome and not his job.

But he’s late. Badlands and I take shelter across the highway at the Red Lobster. I have three Yuengling beers and call the manager over to discuss their “Ameripure” Oysters. He tells me that the pasteurization process allows them to serve the oysters safely. I tell him that it is a jingoistic practice pitting our American insecurities against the welcoming Gulf mollusk. Our voices keep rising, until a table of women recognizes Badlands from his “Wife Swap” appearance and then we all take photos together.

US Male finally arrives. I refuse to waver on my anti-Ameripure stance, so we leave.

8:33 PM

Arrive at The Trappe Tavern. “The Trap,” as it is known to the locals, is the booze hole gathering spot for Rick the Manager’s entourage — he has moved latterly to being a manager of Wingettes (chicken-wing cheerleaders). Rick is a popular guy at this year’s Wing Bowl, and we are slated to enter the arena second to last, just before defending champ Jonathan “Super” Squibb, a mild-mannered accountant who as an unknown won last year’s contest in 32 minutes.

The team is assembled at a table off the main bar. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut (who set a world record at the Coney Island contest by downing 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes) is a three-time Wing Bowl champ who has flown in from California with his Hooters manager friend. Deep Dish Bertoletti, the Key Lime Pie eating champ of the world, has flown in from Chicago. Everyone else is relatively local – Wing Kong, Steakbellie, Yellowcake, and Jeff “The Natural” Olsen.

The waitress is beset with more food orders than drink orders, and “Deep Dish” has a two beer syringe that causes him to go from sober to drooling drunk in fourteen minutes. Instead of side dishes, everyone simply says, “and another order of wings!” I have three orders myself before switching to cheesesteaks.

Friday

12:33 AM

We head to Pumptown, the only strip club within miles (No one seems to know the origins of the dubious name). Oddly enough, the DJ looks exactly like Notorious B.O.B, the chili spaghetti-eating champ. When Notorious B.O.B arrives we try to get a photo of the two doppelgangers by the 1985 television set, but despite allowing smoking, full nudity, and couch dances, Pumptown’s no photo policy is strictly enforced.

2:33 AM

At Rick The Manager’s house to pick-up his float. Like the float in “Animal House,” this one is constructed from car parts, including a police light and siren. It also has a lot of glitter and a vague jailhouse theme. The temperature is dropping outside,  so I switch to warm coffee and espresso vodka.

Everyone moves inside and congregates in two rooms. In the kitchen a giant tomato pie and a six foot sub is served. The food is gone in twenty minutes. Most people pass out on the carpet, but I decide to move outside. The sky is dark. I close my eyes. Rick shakes me awake with my team t-shirt, emblazoned with the slogan “Eat every meal like it’s your last.”

3:33 AM

Head into downtown Philly with Yellowcake and a plump wingette who is wearing five inch stilettos, fishnet stockings, and legwarmers — and not much else.

4:33 PM

We are walking in through the loading dock at the Wachovia Center. It’s drafty and dark outside, but the vinyl maroon jackets of the many security guards gleam brightly in the fluorescent hallways of the giant sports stadium. The light really brings out the cellulite on a drunken, teetering Wingette. I nod a greeting to Damaging Doug, who looks like a cross between Jabba the Hut and the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. He wears voluminous elastic pants.

Steakbellie moves me along as several security guards are scrutinizing the case of water in my hands. The 24 plastic water bottles under shrink wrap contain no water at all. Instead, I have substituted the water with every varietal of clear alcohol except moonshine (which I couldn’t find on short notice).

On the bottom of each bottle is a sharpie pen code. “V-pin” for instance, stands for Pineapple Vodka. Backstage, drinking is frowned upon and booze is always confiscated. However, like Kobayashi in “The Usual Suspects,” I am hiding in plain sight.

The water bottles clear the security station. Without mixers for our 26 bottles of booze (I also have two plastic bottles in my jacket pockets – Laphroig for Steakbellie and Absinthe for me), everyone hits the vending machine.

Joey is a drooling drunk, but is showing off his two Wing Bowl rings from previous years. He couldn’t find the third ring, but the gaudy Super Bowl-style rings are valued at $9,000 each by the Wing Bowl jewelry sponsor.

5:33 AM

Everywhere you look are bleary-eyed strippers, drunken fat guys assembling floats with power tools. Steakbellie sees his old wrestling team – dressed as Jersey Shore characters with orange facepaint, fake plastic chests, and gelled hair.

7:33 AM

Inside the Rick the Manager’s float, I can hear the crowd of 20,000 yelling and whooping and throwing stuff. I’ve switched to apple rum at this point, but my buzz is waning. I encourage Deep Dish to urinate on the inside of the float or the Wachovia ground. When else does someone get a chance to tinkle with 20,000 people cheering their bladder? Nothing seems to go right during out entrance, but perhaps that is the point.

The crowd is riled up, pressing against the Plexiglas, shouting profanity. The few women in the stands are encouraged to flash, but the camera crews aren’t allowed to show exposed breasts on the Jumbotron.

I realize this is as close to the Apocalypse as one can get without actually experiencing the Apocalypse. At some point Snookie from Jersey Shore is introduced and gets on a mechanical bull in the pit. The boos shake the rafters, beers are thrown, the radio host announces that this was not the reaction he was expecting. It seems that despite assembling a stadium of DNA-impaired drunken dolts, he is surprised that the crowd has taste.

Obi Wing, a mutton chopped Wing Bowl regular, tries to bring the energy back by spitting up a handful of wing meat, stripping off his shirt and diving under the table. Rick the Manager appears in the pit and we decide to exit.

8:33 AM

The bright morning sun feels good. I light a cigar and watch someone’s limo roll by. Steakbellie appears with two trays of the leftover Wing Bowl wings. We open them up and steam erupts – they are still warm. Granted ,they are the color of jaundice. The giant steaming trays each hold hundreds of wings. We hand one to B.O.B who has donned sunglasses and sits in the back of Rick the Manager’s car. B.O.B. says nothing but begins eating the wings and flinging the bones out the window. The rest of us attack the other tray like vultures. The wings taste like they were made from chicken that died instead of chicken killed for the purpose, but we don’t slow until the tray is gone. The asphalt ground looks like a Santeria ritual has taken place.

A pageantry-filled, processional parade files into the pit. The parade features twenty-five amateur chicken wing eaters, their entourages, crudely constructed floats, and Wingettes. The winner gets a car, but the 32-minute, three-round eating contest takes a back-seat to the bacchanalia of drinking, tit-flashing, and fist-fighting.

9:33 AM

Wing Bowl is the largest strip club day in Philly. All the clubs open at 8 am for afterparties featuring, “Legs and Eggs,”  strippers and a free breakfast buffet. US Male and I wander past Rick the Manager’s parked car. B.O.B’s tray of leftover wings is 1/8 full and sits on the sidewalk. No one can move anywhere, it’s impossible to get a drink, and the only light provided via neon is headache inducing. It’s like being trapped in a psychedelic elevator.

12:33 PM

When I exit the club, I am blinded by sunlight again. Seagulls have carried off the discarded chicken wings, except for one pile of four or five that looks like dog shit.

At Tony Luke’s, we find ourselves needing another round of cheesesteaks. I like a mushroom steak with provolone and hot peppers, but the hot peppers are overpowering my sandwich. Each is four or five inches long. I can’t handle the hot. Badlands has passed out in the corner and looks like Buddha – granted a Buddha with cheese whiz running down his shirt. I decide we need to head back to NYC. There is nothing more we can learn from Wing Bowl.

This idea that work can be meaningful — and that it should be — is easy to forget when we’re consumed by grim stories of drudgery-filled workdays and unemployment. Sometimes it helps to look at the lives of people who have found a way to stay afloat in non-traditional ways.

“Odd Jobs” is a series of interviews with, and diaries of, workers in occupations that might make you envious, confuse you, or even trouble you. Either way, there’s something unusually deliberate about the choices these people have made to do what they do. We could all stand to take a lesson from it.

Bethany Kivisalu Hickey, “The Taxidermy Chick,” is a former sex educator who now works as a licensed taxidermist. She specializes in domestic birds, one of the hardest of species to work with. Harder than teaching sex ed? Maybe not, but it’s certainly an unusual career shift.

Bethany is self-taught, though she had apprenticed with her father (who ran the business before passing away). It was only five years ago that Bethany officially became, ‘The Taxidermy Chick.”  She now has the help of her husband, who does the skinning and dismembering of the birds–the gross part.

Bethany recently answered questions about her work and kept a diary during her “average” work week.

Are people surprised when they hear about your work–especially since there aren’t many female taxidermists?

Absolutely, they usually get a shocked look upon their faces, utter some statement of disbelief and then say they think it is “very cool…” When I went to the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, to take one of my taxidermy tests, I was sitting directly outside the warden’s office waiting for him to call me in. He could see me and I began to wonder why he was ignoring me for so long. Finally after he got up and walked right past me and then I realized he never imagined I was the person signed up to take the taxidermy test.

Do you think of taxidermy as a science?

I never officially studied taxidermy. Most of my methods and practices I learned from my father, watching him work and apprenticing under him. After his death I read and researched some on my own and while I still follow his basic methods I have developed my own style as well.

My father was a scientist and held a PhD in Wildlife Biology, specifically waterfowl, which greatly aided him in his taxidermy of birds. It was not until his death when I really began to undertake the task of doing the work–start to finish, that I realized how much of an artist he also was.

Where do you find the animals, and does PETA give you a hard time?

We buy our birds from bird fanciers who generally raise birds for show and recreation. I have continued to work with them since they know exactly the styles and breeds of birds I am looking for. I have not had any trouble with harassment from PETA. If people are grossed out, I usually ask them if they eat meat–if they do, I repeat what my father would often say: In Taxidermy we don’t waste any part of the animal. It’s ultimate recycling!

Are there any risks?

Being bit or clawed when working with live birds…being mindful to stay up on our tetanus shots since we work with razors and sharp wires and occasionally get cut and poked. The taxidermy method I use is an old method and it is the one I learned from my father. It is called the “dry method” of taxidermy. It does not include the use of any toxic chemicals and instead involves drying the skin of the bird with Borax (Sodium Borate, a natural occurring mineral and usually found in the form of laundry detergent) and plenty of time.

Most bizarre request?

Besides the funny requests, that I stuff people’s in-laws—intended as jokes, I imagine? Last year I had a man ask me to stuff a black cat to sit on the shoulder of an antique wax figure of a fortune teller that he had acquired. The original taxidermy cat had disintegrated and I refused this request but found it amusing.

How about a limit to what sort of animals you can use? Can you just freely choose from road-kill smorgasbord?

There are many protected birds, there are also many laws about migratory birds and special licenses and permits required.
There are many birds I cannot even pick up or have in my freezer….to name a few, owls, songbirds. Such birds can only be taxidermied with a special permit for educational purposes.

When did you decide that this was more than a hobby?

From the very beginning my father had a list of customers and orders waiting to be filled so I have never had the luxury of this work being a hobby. But for my father it was a long time hobby and interest that over time grew into a business.

Are you ever frightened of the work?

Yes! When an eyeball explodes in my face (which it did the first time my dad tried to each me when I was a teenager) or brains shoot out and get splattered on my skin it definitely grosses me out.

How about preserving your loved ones?

My sister and I would always joke during our single days about having a museum with mounts of boyfriends or bad-acting guys from our past on display. I actually said this once in the hearing of a few guys who were very interested in her and wish I could have captured the look of horror on their faces. It just proved such a practice would encourage sterling behavior in any future young men who expressed interest in either of us. But seriously…No, I would not want to be preserved. I would prefer organ donation to preservation.

Do you have a return policy?

Once birds are in your possession they cannot be returned or exchanged.

Bethany’s Diary
Week of February 14, 2010

Monday: While sitting at breakfast, my eyes fall on a common scene: two legs sticking out of a plastic bag on the living room floor. It is tonight’s work, and from my vantage point I try to figure out what kind of bird those legs and feet belong to. My guess is a large frizzle rooster, based on the rich orange color and thickness of the legs and spurs ,and also my recall of the inventory of frozen birds left in the large chest freezer in the basement. He should be thawed out by tonight and ready for skinning.

Tuesday: Spoke with my customers in the south today and the birds arrived safely. The Black Australian Swan and custom “Mantelpiece Peacock” are going to be picked up by private jet and flown out of the country to their final destination. Though these birds have humble beginning, most go on to live extremely affluent lives after their cosmetic transformation. I often feel like a proud parent sending them on their way, bidding them farewell from the front porch as they leave all neatly packaged with the Fed Ex driver.

Wednesday: On nights like tonight I always remind myself how Papa said, “Never stuff a goose. They are the most fatty and disgusting things.” Somehow I never learn! Once again one grossly obese goose is the reason the entire night was a complete disaster. Before the night was over there was goose fat covering half the basement floor making the cement as slippery as an ice rink, while the other half of the floor was covered with 5 gallons of filthy water I accidentally tipped over in an attempt to wash the stupid thing. I can still hear my husband Ross shouting out, “I’m just glad you don’t work for the bomb squad,” as I spent close to an hour cleaning up my mess. I still cannot dismiss the unfortunate event from my mind because the smell of goose fat seems permanently embedded in my nostrils even after a hot shower.

Thursday: Went to bed and dreamed of pools of goose fat! Got up and did my best to wash it out of Ross’s work clothes from last night. The basement still reeks. There is some pleasure in seeing the culprit all clean and sparkling white hanging up to dry from the rafters by his feet. But a big night awaits as reconstruction begins.

Friday: Mr. Goose is finally ready to begin the drying process. What a production! To make the night complete I also mounted a female Impeyan Pheasant. It is fascinating to think of these birds originating in the Himalayan Mountains and being the national bird of Nepal.

Saturday: Planning the peacock trip out west next month. Trying to empty both chest freezers to free up space for the big beautiful birds. Compared to the geese they are a sheer pleasure to work on and the results always stunning.

Sunday: Very proud of my most recent Lady Amherst Pheasant. He is a brilliant specimen and will bring someone great pleasure for many years to come. By far the longest tail I’ve ever seen on this breed. Usually they are stepped on and torn out by other birds or caught in the wire cages and shredded long before they get to me. But fortunately for me, this handsome guy must have lived a pretty protected existence.