June 5, 2025 • 41 mins
Mark Hedden kicks off the first edition of his "On the Rock" podcast with one of the most beloved people in the Florida Keys. Farmer Jeanne Selander, of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office Animal Farm (commonly referred to as "the jail zoo") joins the show to discuss her career spanning over 20 years. From kinkajous, sloths, ponies, alligators and more, the jail zoo boasts one of the most unique jail programs on the globe. Approaching retirement, Selander recounts riding out Hurricane Irma alone in a jail with 150 animals, tips on how to catch alligators and which sloths are ok to pet.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the On The Rock podcast. I'm your host,
Mark Hedden, and today we're going to be talking to
one of the most beloved figures in the Florida Keys,
Farmer Jeannie, who runs the Monroe County Sheriff's Office animal farm,
which a lot of locals refer to simply as the
jail zoo.
This is the first edition of Beyond the Rock podcast.
It's a production of the Keys Weekly newspapers, which are
(00:32):
published in Key West, Marathon and Key Largo, and it's
sponsored by OMG or the Overseas Media Group. Your key
specialist for digital marketing, social media management, website design and development,
and pretty much anything else that will help your business
or organization thrive in the crazy online world.
(00:55):
All right, um, hey, my name is Mark Hedden, and
you're here with On The Rock with Mark Hedden, a
Key West Weekly podcast, and, um, this is the first one,
and this is the first one, I couldn't think of
a better guest for us to have than, uh, Farmer
Jeannie from the, uh, Monroe County Sheriff's Office, uh, and
the jail over there. So, uh, welcome Jeannie. How you
Speaker 2 (01:15):
doing? Good. How are you? Thanks for having
Speaker 1 (01:17):
me. I'm doing OK, um.
So I guess the question is what's the short version
of this? How do you become a farmer at a jail? Alright,
let's start with this. How did you, how did you
get to Key West? What what was your,
Speaker 2 (01:28):
what was I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. I have a
degree in marine biology and I applied to work at
the Key West Aquarium, got the job there and I
came down here for the job at the aquarium.
And was the assistant curator at the Key West Aquarium.
Did that for 7 years. Our veterinarian for the sea
turtles was Doctor Doug Mader, and he also is the
(01:52):
veterinarian for the sheriff's animal farm. So when they were
looking for a new farmer, Doctor Doug said, come with
me one day, um, I'm going to share a llama,
and I'm like, where, where's that? And he said at
the zoo and I was like, we don't have a zoo.
And he said, yeah, it's at the jail and he's
got a great sense of humor so I said now
I know you're lying but I ended up going with
(02:14):
him to share the llama at the zoo at the
jail and it was dirty and smelly and you could
tell it was kind of unloved at that point, but
such the the um the farm, the farm was just,
you know, it, it needed some love and no the
llama was beautiful.
But uh I just could tell it was just a
(02:36):
diamond in the rough and I saw so much potential
and then not long after that Doug said well they're
looking for a new farmer and he said you should
apply so I did and the rest is history. I've
been there 20 years now and uh have kind of
brought it from being an oddity under the.
Jail to being an internationally recognized facility. So, um, that's
(02:59):
how you get to be the farmer in the jail. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (03:01):
you
guys get so much good press. It's amazing. I was
doing a little googling last night. I'm like there's just
so many
Speaker 2 (03:07):
stories. It's a rabbit hole. Yeah, you definitely go down
the rabbit hole if you Google it because we've got
so many places that have done documentaries and
TV shows and just little little uh internet snippets and
things so it's the press has been so good and
that's what's brought us to the level we are now
because it's brought the interest and it's made us kind
(03:28):
of put us in the spotlight where people want to
come and see what is this all about this program
at the jail where the inmates take care of the
animals which is so special.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Um, yeah, let me ask you this. I mean, are
you guys the only jail in I'm sorry, only zoo
in a jail, or are you the first zoo in
a
jail?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We are the first zoo in a jail. Um, since
my time there, there have been a few that have
tried to start up, but they're not rescuing animals like
we are, and we actually have animals that are.
Abandoned, abused, confiscated or donated so we do not purchase
animals just to put on display. They're all there because
they need a home. So some of the other facilities
(04:08):
that have started up are actually they've bought some animals
to get started I guess and they're not doing the
same thing that I'm doing, but they're they're trying to
trying to start a program like ours because it's so.
Good for the inmates and and the animals and the public.
It's just kind of a threefold all win-win, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
For the inmates, is this considered like therapy or rehabilitation
is there to it
or
Speaker 2 (04:32):
yeah, there's definitely structure to it. They can request to
be on the farm so they are not forced to
work on the farm. It is a volunteer program and
we primarily take inmates from the jail drug intervention program
so we partner with that program.
And when they get to phase two in their drug
program they can apply to work on the farm and
(04:52):
it is definitely therapeutic and I've seen so many changes
in the inmates that have worked for me on the
farm and the love that they feel for the animals
and the animals give them love as well and also
they'll come back and bring their families to visit when
they get out, which is the highest compliment that somebody
wants to come back to the jail and bring their
(05:13):
families and they're so proud of what they're.
Doing they're very invested in it so I would say
it's definitely a great rehabilitation type program but people ask
me sometimes, are they, do they ever want to go
start doing their own zoo or their own farm or
work with animals but our facility is a detention center,
which means they're not there for years and years they're
(05:34):
there for less than a year so you can be
sentenced to 364 days and be at our facility, not
more than that. So if you're sentenced to more than
that you're going to prison.
So they're not there really more than a few months
to a year. So if you're a plumber and you're
only there for a few months, you're not going to
learn enough to really start your own zoo or farm
(05:56):
you're gonna go back to your plumber job when you
get out of jail. So it's really just something to
pass their time and to give back to the community
and make a difference by taking care of the animals.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Can you tell me a little bit about how the
program got started?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It started completely by accident. Uh, Sheriff Roth back in 1994, uh,
Becky Herron was a deputy, and she suggested to Sheriff
Roth that we round up the ducks that were crossing
the road between the golf course and the jail, the
Muscobee Ducks, and, uh, they were getting hit by cars,
so they said, let's round them up, put them on
(06:33):
the property, put them on this unused property under the jail,
which it was just a fenced air.
for fire evacuation under the jail because the jail's 11
ft off the ground for fire uh sorry for hurricane
standards I
Speaker 1 (06:47):
guess for people who might be listening from the Keys
1972 has to be the year but I know that
we have to be elevated so we're
11
Speaker 2 (06:58):
feet off the ground because people can't understand why I
say we're under the jail, but that's why we're under
the jail. But um there's a lot of empty.
Space under there and they said let's get the ducks,
get some inmates to round them up, put them on
this property, make a break area, picnic table, pond, and
the deputies can come down and take a break and
the landscaper can throw them some food, the ducks. Well,
(07:20):
the rumors started that we were taking in animals and
Sheriff Roth was a true animal lover, and he felt
like if people were just dropping off animals that there
was a need for a facility to take them so
that's how the farm began in 1994.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
OK, you don't remember what the second animal was by
any chance,
Speaker 2 (07:39):
do you? I don't, but one of the first animals
was a blind horse named Angel, and she came from
being abandoned up in the Redlands, and, um, Sheriff Roth
used to ride her in parades and things too, so
but she passed away before I came to the farm
so I've been there 20 years next year.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And so your animals are all either uh adopted or
confiscated or
Speaker 2 (08:02):
abandoned abused, confiscated or donated primarily donated most of the
time it's just a pet that somebody bought and it won't,
it's not a great idea to have a lemur, but
they don't think that through very well. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And then I guess probably one of the big ones
is uh they call them Korean potbellied pigs back.
In the day and they were just pigs, right?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, we have, I think a couple potbellied pigs now,
but they are one of the most surrendered animals and
back in the 80s, that was the hot pet to have,
you know, they were, they were the trendy pet and
people didn't think about how long they live, 20 to
25 years, how big they get. I mean, Vietnamese potbelly pigs,
it's like.
Maybe 80 pounds, but still that's big. They're not gonna
(08:45):
stay Chihuahua size, but they're not a 1000 pound farm
hog so people think they're gonna stay tiny, but they're
really not tiny when you look at how you know
80 pounds so those were surrendered quite a bit now too.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
OK, and um I mean are there any any animals
that you've been like, wait, no, we we can't handle that. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (09:05):
we are actually certified by USDA.
USDA certified zoo and we're permitted by USDA and there's
certain animals you can and cannot have on your USDA permit.
You can have a rider added to your permit for
big cats, for example, but we do not have that
so we can't have lions and tigers, um, but pretty
(09:26):
much anything else that's on on the permit we can have.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Do you
ever have a wish list of an animal
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I
had a wish list all the years that I've.
Been there when I first started there were only 20
animals and I had a long wish list of different
things that I thought would be great like a bull
or a cow, a donkey, a turkey. I was just
thinking small because I never dreamed we would have a
sloth and a lemur and a kota mundi and a
kinkadoo and all these odd exotic animals, but what I
(09:54):
did was branch out to or reach out to a
lot of different sanctuaries and rescues throughout South Florida. I started.
With in the South Florida local area if you have
a donkey or if you have an alpaca or you
know anything that needs a home, we have room because
we had a lot of empty stalls and a lot
of empty space so as people started learning about us
(10:16):
and we started getting more animals and getting more popular,
more and more people would reach out and ask us
to take their animals so we're about up to 120 now.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
OK um and you.
If someone came along with a great animal that you want,
do you still have room or we do,
Speaker 2 (10:31):
we have room. I still have a wish list, but
the wish list is a lot smaller and more, uh,
specific now I guess. I don't just take bunnies all
the time. I mean, we don't need 500 bunnies, um, uh,
but I've always wanted to have a zebra, and we've
been close to having 12 or 3 times, but a
lot of other rescues want them too, so you kind
(10:53):
of get on the list and when your time comes
you might get one.
Um, but our thing is we only take the animals,
like I said, they have to have a story. They
have to be abandoned, abused, confiscated or donated, so I
can't just go out and buy a zebra, but we
do have a pair of sloths and we have lemurs,
we have foxes, armadillos, skunks, quadramundi, kinka Jews. We've got
(11:14):
a lot of these.
Exotics I really started going from just farm animals to
branching out to taking some of the exotics that needed
homes because people buy these pets and they think they're
cool but normally they're gonna get aggressive as they get
older and so when they start biting that's when I
get the phone call.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Wow, um, and you guys, you guys have, well, I
think what I would consider the first celebrity animal in
the Keys which was Moe Moe the sloth
Speaker 2 (11:40):
where did Mola
Molasses came from.
Uh, Peter Perente, who lived in the Keys on Sugarloaf,
and he had Tucker the Kinka Jew who I still have, um,
mow the sloth, Maggie the sloth, and so he donated
Maggie to me first, and Maggie was a wild caught
(12:01):
sloth that we think was probably brought in to be
a breeder back when that started to be the thing
when people wanted sauces.
Pets, so she was never handleable, um, and so she
just stayed in the aviary but a lot of people
didn't even know we had her because I couldn't carry
her around but then he decided that he wanted me
to have Moe so he gave me moe and Mo
(12:23):
literally put the farm on the map. I mean people
were coming to have prom proposals with him and wanted
to come.
After their wedding to meet the sloth, and he got
invited everywhere. I did not get invited. Mo got invited,
so I was just his, his schedule keeper. So I did,
I literally traveled all over the Keys for 13 years
(12:43):
with Moe, and then sadly, a couple of years ago,
he developed bladder cancer and he passed away, but we
didn't even know he had cancer. He just passed in
his sleep and
He was probably about 2021 years old, and they lived
20 to 25 years.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
They probably live a little longer in captivity, right?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
They do less
stress and a lot more hazards and and predators in
the wild
Speaker 1 (13:05):
was he captive born
Speaker 2 (13:06):
he was captive born. He was raised on a bottle
and that is why I could carry him around like
that and he was literally like my right arm for
13 years. I mean, we went everywhere together.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Have you ever seen the photo of the family who
dressed up like you
Speaker 2 (13:19):
and know them and
And that was great. That was the best.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That was one of my favorite costumes.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Mine too, and people, she looks a lot like me,
so people were like, oh, we saw you in the parade,
and I was like that was not me, that was
Lindsey Nelson. But yeah, the Nelson family dressed up but
um I've had kids dress up like me for Halloween
with the brown outfit and the the stuffed sloth hanging
around their neck and what a compliment. I mean, it's
such an amazing thing to be such a big part
(13:48):
of this community for so long.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Um, and so you have two
new slots now, right?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I do. I got them in September of last year.
I actually never thought I'd have slots again. It's not
something easy to get, but
Um, there was a facility in North Fort Myers, a
zoo that was closing after 80 years, and they had
about 400 animals to rehome, and I had some contacts
in the, the news media up there in North Fort
(14:15):
Myers that gave me kind of a little heads up
before the public heard about it, and I contacted them
and I just sent a text to the person that
they gave me the contact info for and I said
I'm Jeannie Seelander with the sheriff's Animal Farm in Key
West and.
Um, if you have any interesting animals that you might
want to donate to us, we're more than happy to
(14:35):
take them.
And they wrote back immediately and said didn't you have
mow the sloth? and I said yes I did and
they said we want to give you our sloths. So
that's how it all kind of came together and during
Hurricane Helene I left here during the hurricane and drove
up there to get them and as they were closing
the bridges out of Fort Myers for the hurricane, I
(14:58):
got out of Fort Myers so um.
Um, those are my hurricane babies. I went and got them.
They're 9 and 10 years old, but they were breeders.
They were a breeding pair, so they were not handled.
They were not hand raised like Moe. So it's amazing
to have them, but you cannot pick them up. Everybody's like,
oh well, if anybody can make them friendly, it's Farmer
Jeanie no it doesn't work that way. So we just
(15:21):
enjoy them and let them do their thing.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
OK, OK, so, um, what do you bring to a
parade or a public event these days?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I've got lots of things to choose from, but parades
normally the miniature horses or the alpaca.
Um, everybody loves the alpaca in the Christmas parade. I
try to do her every other year, uh, Arabella, um,
I have several miniature horses, and I kind of rotate
them and do different costumes every year. I kind of
look forward to what I'm gonna dress him up as
(15:50):
each year. I've done the goats in the parade before. Uh,
Khaki Channel Bridge Run is coming up this Sunday, and Peanut,
the mini horse will go with me.
And she and I will be the first ones to
cross the bridge to start the race. So I've got
still quite a few animals that travel and lots of
smaller animals that go with me to schools and libraries
and everything too.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Let me ask you this, you've got 120 animals. How
do you manage in an organized way to take care
of all their weird and various needs?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It's a 24/7 labor of love. I mean, I, I'm
always researching and
You don't go to school for this. It's like no
matter how many books I read or how much knowledge
I learned from Doctor Doug or our vet or um
on the internet, you learn a lot of things the
hard way and just by hands on, um.
(16:43):
And a lot of times I learn from other facilities
that have these animals too, but I'm always researching and
learning what's the best habitat, what's the best food, and
we try to give them all habitats and if you
come to the farm you'll see they don't look like
they're in cages. We try really hard to make sure
they have great lives and great habitats because they're there
for their lifetime. We're not adopting them out. They are
(17:06):
there to spend the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
OK, so.
A lot of this depends on you. Do you have
other staff, you have volunteers? How does that all
work?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, um, we have the inmates, of course. The inmates
take care of the basic daily needs for the animals,
so they do the feeding, watering, cleaning, um, they follow
along when the vet comes, so they get to be
a part of everything going on. They also help us
build habitats and they paint and, you know, refresh the
the colors on the stalls and everything so the inmates are.
(17:37):
are essential I would say then 5 years ago they
kind of decided maybe.
I needed some help because I was doing the landscaping
of the entire jail property with my inmates, the farm,
and traveling throughout the Keys with animals and community events,
so I was kind of doing three things and kept
asking for help with the landscaping because the job started
(18:00):
as a landscaper, remember I told you that when it
started they would have the landscaper feed some food to
the ducks. Well, it started as the landscaping job and
then kind of morphed into.
The farmer job. So the farmer also has always taken
care of the jail landscaping, but that's a lot when
your animal population starts growing.
(18:21):
So I kept asking for help and finally they let
me hire an assistant. So 5 years ago I hired
farmer Sandy, and she's been amazing and she's my right
hand and she helps me with everything except she does
not love to travel with the animals so I do
all the outreach and then she likes to be there
on the farm doing all the the farm stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
OK, and um I guess this is the time to.
it up, but my wife kind of like was shocked
the other day when she saw an ad, an ad
for your job. So what the
hell?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Well, um, I'm, I've been doing this for almost 20
years next year and decided it was time to pass
the torch. So I have actually found someone that has
checks all the boxes and has all the qualifications I
was looking.
For which truly is a needle in a haystack, and
I had asked, I've been looking for about 2 years now,
(19:15):
and I had asked the um command staff that I'd
be allowed to train my replacement for at least a
year because this is a lot of stuff to pass
on and um not everybody just knows how to walk
in the lemur cage and handle the lemurs so they
agreed and so once this person finishes their.
Pre-hire screening and everything. I'm hoping they'll start in May
(19:37):
and I will get a chance to introduce my replacement
to the public and change is a good thing. I
keep telling everybody it's I have put my touch on
the farm for 20 years and this person has some
great ideas and really fresh new motivation and I think
she's gonna put she's gonna bring it to the next level.
So I am going to pass it on to somebody
(19:59):
to put their touch on it now and I have
done so much to make sure that it stays a
part of this community and stays a part of the
sheriff's office and we always call it the sheriff's gift
to the community because everything we do is free we,
it's free to come to the farm and visit it's
free when I travel around with the animals so it
doesn't cost the community anything is it's our gift to
(20:20):
the community.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And so, so how much, uh, taking the animals out
and showing them to the community, how much do you
do like school
trips or
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I do that all the time. I have school groups
that come to the farm, so like a field trip
I give an hour long tour and bring out different
animals for them to pet and teach them about the animals,
but then I, some places can't travel to me, so
I go to them. Um, sometimes 3 or 4 days
a week, uh, this weekend I have 2.
(20:48):
Things I'm going on a Saturday. I'm going to the
Navy base at or the military base at Sigsbe to
do the extravaganza, and I'll take animals to that. And
then Sunday I have the khaki bridge run, so I
don't get very many days off. I just kinda I
love what I'm doing, so I really enjoy going out
in the community and doing the stuff I do rotary clubs, libraries, schools,
(21:12):
you name it.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Uh, so at the beginning of all this, were you
worried at all about working with people who were in jail?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, that was a concern. I had never even been
to a jail. And so when I found out it
was at the jail and I called and I said,
can I please come spend a day on the farm
and see what it's like to work with the inmates
because I didn't know.
It seems scary to me, but I went and I
spent a day and um, I followed around and I
was like, hm it's not so bad they're regular people,
(21:42):
they're just doing their jobs. So I applied for it
and I got it and then I had a little
8 hour orientation like my first or 2nd day on
the job and, and uh they were telling me about
what to do if I were held hostage.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Which is a normal job training thing,
Speaker 2 (22:00):
yeah, that's something that you find out about you every day.
So that concerned me and they said um.
The men in black will come. The people in black
will come, and I'm thinking, what in the world are
they talking about? Were
Speaker 1 (22:13):
you expecting like Will Smith and No,
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I don't even know if that thought didn't come to
my mind. I was just concerned about the fact that
I think what was going through my mind is the
inmates could kidnap me and hold me hostage, so I'm
not really thinking, but I didn't know what she meant
when I, the sergeant was telling me about the, the
men in black will come, and it was just we
used to have a.
Cert team and that that it's been disbanded but it
(22:38):
was a special team at the jail that they wore
black and that if maybe an inmate wasn't cooperating and
they needed to extract them from their cell or they
were causing trouble, that was the specially trained team that
would go in so I guess that was the the
team that was gonna come for me if I were
held hostage, but I went home that night and seriously
(22:59):
considered whether or not I had made a good decision, so.
Um, yeah, I had some concerns. I really did, but, um,
it's you just never let you wanna never let your
guard down, um, but these are regular people that have
made mistakes and they are just trying to do their
time and get out and get back to their life
and to their family, but when you first start doing
(23:23):
this it's a little, it's a little unnerving because you're
not really sure what you're doing I mean I've never
been in law enforcement or anything. I was literally fresh
off the turnip truck.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Wow, OK, well, but it's worked out pretty well. Can
can any prisoner or not any any inmate be a
um work at the jail?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
No, no, they, I can't have any that are child
sex offenders, child abusers, animal abusers. We have kids that
come to the farm all the time. These inmates are
very carefully screened to make sure that they are suitable
to work on the farm, so not just any inmate
can work on the farm. We call these the cream
of the crop inmates. OK.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
And is it kind of.
It's a privilege to be able to
work.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It is, it is, it is a privilege to work
on the farm and the sergeant that screens them makes
sure they're not a flight risk and make sure that
they are safe for me to work with so that
I'm not gonna have anybody that's trying to attack me
or hold me hostage or anything like that. So they're
very carefully screened and then I can determine whether or
(24:23):
not they stay on the farm and now that I
have my assistant Sandy as well, same thing I told her,
you know, if they even look at you wrong and
you're uncomfortable.
We can remove them. We are not forced to work
with them and they are not forced to work on
the farm, so it has to be a happy agreement
for everybody involved.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
OK, that's great. So I know, I know it's wrong
to pick favorites, but if, if you had a current
favorite animal there, what would it
be?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Well, I always used to say I love them all.
I mean they're they're my children. Um, of course, was
was a huge favorite, but now I, I
I have to say it's Tucker the Kinkadoo. I've got
a very special relationship with Tucker the Kinkadoo, and he
came in with Moow the sloths, and I've had him
(25:11):
since he was 5 years old and he's about 21
or 22 now and he, I'm the only one that
holds him and takes him out and, and, uh, he's just, he,
he's kind of a cross between a monkey and a raccoon,
a ferret, he's, it's long skinny animal with a prehensile
tail and a lot of people have no idea what
a kinkadoo is, but.
(25:31):
Um, when the kids come to the farm for the tour,
I take him out and he likes to hang by
his tail, so I show him his little trick and everything,
but yeah, Tucker the Kinky Jew has a special place
in my heart.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Um, and I'm trying to remember where kinkatoos are from,
is it?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Central and South America, so they're from the rainforest and
they're nocturnal, so typically you won't see them. You might
hear them at night.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
OK, um, cool, and hold on, Britt just handed me
a note.
Alright, so this is a question from Britt. We're gonna
ask it and he said he's asking if you had
to compare Captain John Crane to any of the animals,
which would it be? And first, who is Captain John Crane?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Oh, Captain John Crane is our operations captain at the jail.
And as a matter of fact, he just came to
Easter on the farm last Sunday. He's been at the
jail for I guess 20 something years and it was
his first Easter on the farm, so I was really
excited that he came down to see what we do.
(26:37):
I don't know what animal I don I don't, I
don't have an animal that I would compare him to.
I would have to think on that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
OK.
Um, well, we'll do that if you when you come
back for your exit interview you retire, you got like
what a
Speaker 2 (26:52):
year I have a year and a half, yeah, and
you know it's not set in stone. I just wanna
be sure this person has been to all the events
that I normally go to and met all the people
and been introduced to the public and learns how to
handle each animal and can do all the paperwork and
all the invoices and the ordering and the.
Supplies and all the other stuff I do that people
(27:12):
don't realize I do because people just think I pet
animals all day
Speaker 1 (27:16):
and I how much of the job is petting
animals
Speaker 2 (27:18):
is almost zero. I mean, I, in the afternoons, um,
I roll out a cart with all of the prepared produce,
the meals for all the animals with all the cut
up produce that we give them. I roll it out
and hand it to the inmates and I usually take.
The bowl off the top with the sloth food on
it and the inmates all know that if I am
(27:38):
there that I am feeding the sloths and one day,
a few days ago last week, I wasn't able to
because I had something else going on. I think I
had a tour coming and so I left it on
the cart and the next day when I went to
get it off the cart, the guy, the inmate says
to me, I fed him yesterday. I hope you weren't
mad at me.
I'm like, no, if I leave it on the cart,
(27:58):
it is for you to feed, but I said it's
the only time I ever get to interact with the
animals is when I get to, you know, feed them sometimes.
So I usually try to feed the sauce. They're just
certain things that I just want to be able to
have a little bit of time with each day. But
when I first started and there were 20 animals after
the inmates would go upstairs, I would go sit.
(28:19):
With them I would sit with the pig and I
would groom the llama and I would spend time with
every animal and now I'm lucky if I get to
put eyes on every animal sometimes now it's just a
whirlwind of stuff going on and one of the people
that interviewed for my job was like, oh how much
time will I get to spend with the animals? and
I said, not very much. So if that's what you
(28:40):
think I do, that's not the job for you.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I, I have one question which you may not, may
or may not be the answer, but you guys took
the goats in that used to be on the navy base, right?
Do you still have any of them?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
And originally in 2002, I started in 2006 and apparently
in 2002.
The Navy adopted the goats from the farm that were
the original goats that were out at the Seminole barracks
at Truman Annex to to mow the grass on the barracks. Um,
and so they found they thought it was fitting that
(29:14):
when they decommissioned the goat program and retired the goats
and they had an official decommissioning ceremony for the goats
and
Um, retired them to the farm and there were 4
at the time that I got them and I actually
still have 2. I have Tank and Zeus. They're still
at the farm. Wow,
Speaker 1 (29:32):
that's
great. I remember I used to walk down Olivia and
then you know you wouldn't be thinking about a goat
calling them, you know, but
Speaker 2 (29:42):
it just changed a lot down there.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
And how do you how do you acquire something like
an alligator? Like is it is it wasn't a wild
alligator
Speaker 2 (29:49):
and alligator.
A unique situation or unique part um because that is
the only animal I do not keep for its lifetime.
When I was at the aquarium we wanted a pair
of alligators, so I went up to the Everglades alligator
farm and met Gator Bob who was who ran the farm.
(30:11):
And I learned how to catch them. He took me
out in the pond. He goes, come on, we're gonna
go catch your alligators, and I was like, what? So
we waited out in the pond and he's like, you
don't wanna catch any of them that are like coming
towards you.
Because those are the more aggressive ones you want to
catch the ones that are gonna sink down because those
are the submissive ones. So that's a good tip, yeah, exactly.
(30:33):
So we caught the alligators and while I was there, um,
Doctor Doug, our veterinarian said we're getting one for the
farm too, and at that point I didn't even know
what the farm was but we were.
Getting an alligator for this farm, so I went and
caught 2 alligators for the aquarium and one for the farm,
and then I dropped the alligator off at the farm
(30:54):
and that was the first time I'd ever been there
and I never knew that I was gonna work there
and run the farm when I took the alligator there
but what we do is every few years when the alligator.
It's too big to handle, we take it and we
trade it in and they rent gators, so I think
it's just $50 a foot or something like that, but
(31:16):
they don't charge us because we're a nonprofit so basically
we care for this gator until it's about 4 or
5 ft long and then when it gets too big
for us to carefully safely handle for the children.
I take it and I trade it in for another alligator,
so that's the only animal we do that with because
it's a native animal and also it's such a great
outreach animal to have to be able to teach the
(31:38):
kids about one of our native animals that lives here
in the Keys with us, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That that's pretty good. I just love the fact that
anytime I've had a chance to touch an alligator or crocodile,
their room temperature.
They're always the temperature of where you are. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (31:53):
sometimes they're really cold, yeah, when I get it, when
I travel to different places, I'll say sometimes um this
alligator is really cold because it's been in my air
conditioned truck and they'll literally be really cold and then
after it's laid on my arm for a while it's.
In the heat from my arm and it'll start waking
up and warming up, but yeah,
Speaker 1 (32:11):
do
they get a little more docile when they're just
Speaker 2 (32:13):
like snakes in the wintertime, you know, if you step
on a snake in the wintertime it's not as likely
to bite you as one in the summer because they
they're slow their metabolism so much.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
We do on occasion get hurricanes down here and there's
kind of stories about what what happened when Hurricane Irma
hit with you guys.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
We have to always be prepared for hurricanes because it's
a common thing here, but during Hurricane Irma, um, we
thought that we might be getting a direct Category 5
hit on the Keys and so the sheriff originally earlier
in the week had determined that we weren't we, you know,
it's a fluid thing you never know what where it's
(32:52):
gonna hit or where it's gonna go you just have
the cone.
Um, and so we were like, OK, it's not gonna
be a direct hit. So earlier in the week he
said we're not evacuating because if the inmates and the
deputies don't evacuate the jail, I don't leave with the
animals because that's my workforce right there is the inmates.
So I was like, OK, it was Tuesday, Wednesday they
(33:14):
decided we weren't going.
So I called off my hauler that would have come
to pick me up and I had a farm that
I was gonna go to on the mainland and a
monumental task. I can only imagine how it would be
to have to evacuate the keys with these animals and thankfully,
knock on wood, have never had to do that but
that was what was gonna happen so then.
(33:35):
Come Friday afternoon we went from Tuesday where we weren't
going anywhere to Friday 5 o'clock I got home and
I was gonna crate all the animals on Saturday. I
had everything prepped and ready. I was gonna crate them
and move them to different areas just for safety. I
get a call on Friday at 5 o'clock from Becky
Heron and she says.
(33:55):
If you need to move your animals, you need to
come now they are evacuating the jail and I said,
What do you mean they're evacuating the jail? She said,
they are going to Palm Beach County with the inmates
and the deputies. So if you need your inmates, you
need to come in now. So I threw my uniform.
For back on she said well she says what are
you gonna do? And I said, Well, I'm gonna stay
(34:17):
and she said well I gotta make sure that's OK.
I said no I'm, I'm staying. I am not leaving
my animals and so she said, OK, I'll I'll make
sure that happens. So, um, because she was my supervisor
at the time. So I went in and I got
my inmates and we started creating animals and it was
about 757 o'clock it was already dark by the time
(34:40):
that we started.
And the animals were sleeping. It was easy to catch
some that are normally a little difficult to catch because
everything was sleeping, so we were kind of surprising them.
So my inmates helped me catch all the animals. It
took us 8 hours.
And we moved them on the loading dock elevator into
(35:00):
the cells in the jail. All the animals and the alpacas,
the horses, the goats, the sheep, the pigs, the, the sloths, everything,
anything that could go in a crate was in a crate.
Anything that couldn't go in a crate was just getting
on the elevator and getting in a cell once we
got off the.
Elevator. So it was Noah's Ark. I mean, I said
the jail has now become the ark. So the last
(35:23):
bus that was leaving at 2 o'clock in the morning,
they came to me and they said, your inmates have
to be on the last bus. And it gives me
chills to think about it, but as they're leaving, they're
waving and they're yelling out the window, we love you,
Farmer Jeannie and
You know, it's just the love they have for the
animals and how hard they work on the farm and
everything that was so special that they all pitched in
(35:46):
and helped me move every animal into the jail, so
I lived there for two weeks with no power, no water,
no air conditioning, and of course I had all my
supplies so I was OK, but um.
That was that was quite an experience so people say
you need to write a book so I started kind
of literally putting things down so I wouldn't forget any
(36:07):
of the details and I've kind of jotted everything down
on the computer, but I've never had time to actually
write the book but yeah that was quite an experience
which I hope never to have to go through again
but um never imagined that they would ever leave the
jail and that I would stay behind.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That's a great story. And let me, let me ask
you about this is, so you spent all day working
on a farm with all these animals and then you
go home to how many Chihuahuas?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I have 11 right now. I have 10 plus a
foster and I have my own.
Chihuahua hospice for senior Chihuahuas and it's called Rivers Wish
Inc and River was my very first senior hospice Chihuahua
and unbeknownst to me I never thought I would be
rescuing these senior Chihuahuas and have my own 501c3, but
(36:56):
I saw that there was a need for these dogs
that had been.
Um, they're old, their owner dies, and they're ending up
in the shelter, and they have some type of major
health issue. They have heart failure, kidney failure, cancer. Nobody's
gonna adopt a 19 year old dog with cancer, let's
(37:16):
be real. So I adopt those dogs and I adopt
the ones nobody wants. So I work very closely with
the Florida Keys SPCA right there on.
College Road, um, I've got just an amazing relationship with
them and they will call me when they have that Chihuahua,
the one that nobody wants, the one that is biting everybody,
(37:37):
the one that they do not want to walk in
the cage with and handle, those are the ones that
I take. And once those little tiny dogs get out
of the shelter, it's amazing how much they decompress and
they're not that crazy little ankle biter and they come
to the farm.
And they have a great life they enjoy when people
come to the farm to visit they enjoy the inmates
(37:59):
and vice versa. The inmates love having the dogs around
and I have kids tours come to the farm on
a regular basis for field trips and they hear them
barking in my office because I'll put them in the
office when I have the tour going on and a
lot of the kids know I have Chihuahuas and at
the end.
They're like, can we see the dogs? So I will
let them out and have all the kids around petting
(38:21):
the dogs, and it's just, it's great enrichment for these
little senior Chihuahuas. So I keep them for the rest
of their life. Some of them, I think the shortest
time I had one was 2 weeks, and some of
them I've had for a few years and just managing
them with medication and, and care, but yeah,
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I mean, but.
It tears my heart at the end of their life.
It's gonna be so
Speaker 2 (38:42):
hard and it's a lot of work. People don't realize
how much it's like taking care of an elderly person
that has health issues. I mean it is a 24/7
thing and a lot of times if I weren't able
to take them to work to.
To the farm there's no way I could do this
because some of them need around the clock care or
you know you can't just leave them in the house
(39:03):
for 8 hours because they're a little bladder they're old
and they have to pee so they come to work
and they can run around the farm and and I
can take care of them while I'm working. Wow,
Speaker 1 (39:12):
that
is that is amazing. I am so impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
I have one that I take to um.
The rehab center, the Palm Vista rehab center down the
down the street on College Road, his mom went in
the rehab center, his owner, and she's in her 80s
and she's probably not going to come out of the
rehab center and her little dog ended up at the shelter,
but he's one of those crazy biters that nobody wanted
(39:38):
to pick up and.
So they called me and they said, will you take
him and they told me the story about the lady
being at the rehab center and I said, would she
like him to visit? And they said, absolutely the daughter
tried to come and get him and he was just
crazy so nobody could could catch him or or handle him.
Um, so I take him on Sundays and I visit
(40:00):
her and it is the light of her day to
see her dog and all the nurses know him and
everything because they all know Frankie's coming to visit his
mom and they say, oh, is that Frankie? So it
just really warms my heart to be able to do
that for her and bring her little dog to visit
with her.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
That's that is so great. But I, I just gotta
ask though, if someone rings your doorbell, what happens like
11 dogs, they all go off?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, yeah, luckily I kind of live at the end
of a secluded pathway, so it's not like just random
people come to the door, but yeah, it's even the
inmates say they are the best security because anybody comes
to the farm gate. I know somebody's at the farm gate.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I just, I managed one dog, you know, our dog,
and she goes crazy. I can't imagine
Speaker 2 (40:43):
it's
Speaker 1 (40:43):
like the chain reaction of
Speaker 2 (40:45):
dogs a great little security force.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Alright, well, hey, thanks a lot, Farmer Jeanie. This is, uh,
this has been on the Rock with Mark Hedden with me,
Mark Hedden, um, and, uh, we've had our, our first
guest Farmer Jeanie who's a great guest and thank you
so much for coming on and for all that you
do.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
You're welcome appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Alright,
Speaker 1 (41:05):
thanks.
Welcome to the On The Rock podcast. I'm your host,
Mark Hedden, and today we're going to be talking to
one of the most beloved figures in the Florida Keys,
Farmer Jeannie, who runs the Monroe County Sheriff's Office animal farm,
which a lot of locals refer to simply as the
jail zoo.
This is the first edition of Beyond the Rock podcast.
It's a production of the Keys Weekly newspapers, which are
(00:32):
published in Key West, Marathon and Key Largo, and it's
sponsored by OMG or the Overseas Media Group. Your key
specialist for digital marketing, social media management, website design and development,
and pretty much anything else that will help your business
or organization thrive in the crazy online world.
(00:55):
All right, um, hey, my name is Mark Hedden, and
you're here with On The Rock with Mark Hedden, a
Key West Weekly podcast, and, um, this is the first one,
and this is the first one, I couldn't think of
a better guest for us to have than, uh, Farmer
Jeannie from the, uh, Monroe County Sheriff's Office, uh, and
the jail over there. So, uh, welcome Jeannie. How you
Speaker 2 (01:15):
doing? Good. How are you? Thanks for having
Speaker 1 (01:17):
me. I'm doing OK, um.
So I guess the question is what's the short version
of this? How do you become a farmer at a jail? Alright,
let's start with this. How did you, how did you
get to Key West? What what was your,
Speaker 2 (01:28):
what was I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. I have a
degree in marine biology and I applied to work at
the Key West Aquarium, got the job there and I
came down here for the job at the aquarium.
And was the assistant curator at the Key West Aquarium.
Did that for 7 years. Our veterinarian for the sea
turtles was Doctor Doug Mader, and he also is the
(01:52):
veterinarian for the sheriff's animal farm. So when they were
looking for a new farmer, Doctor Doug said, come with
me one day, um, I'm going to share a llama,
and I'm like, where, where's that? And he said at
the zoo and I was like, we don't have a zoo.
And he said, yeah, it's at the jail and he's
got a great sense of humor so I said now
I know you're lying but I ended up going with
(02:14):
him to share the llama at the zoo at the
jail and it was dirty and smelly and you could
tell it was kind of unloved at that point, but
such the the um the farm, the farm was just,
you know, it, it needed some love and no the
llama was beautiful.
But uh I just could tell it was just a
(02:36):
diamond in the rough and I saw so much potential
and then not long after that Doug said well they're
looking for a new farmer and he said you should
apply so I did and the rest is history. I've
been there 20 years now and uh have kind of
brought it from being an oddity under the.
Jail to being an internationally recognized facility. So, um, that's
(02:59):
how you get to be the farmer in the jail. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (03:01):
you
guys get so much good press. It's amazing. I was
doing a little googling last night. I'm like there's just
so many
Speaker 2 (03:07):
stories. It's a rabbit hole. Yeah, you definitely go down
the rabbit hole if you Google it because we've got
so many places that have done documentaries and
TV shows and just little little uh internet snippets and
things so it's the press has been so good and
that's what's brought us to the level we are now
because it's brought the interest and it's made us kind
(03:28):
of put us in the spotlight where people want to
come and see what is this all about this program
at the jail where the inmates take care of the
animals which is so special.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Um, yeah, let me ask you this. I mean, are
you guys the only jail in I'm sorry, only zoo
in a jail, or are you the first zoo in
a
jail?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We are the first zoo in a jail. Um, since
my time there, there have been a few that have
tried to start up, but they're not rescuing animals like
we are, and we actually have animals that are.
Abandoned, abused, confiscated or donated so we do not purchase
animals just to put on display. They're all there because
they need a home. So some of the other facilities
(04:08):
that have started up are actually they've bought some animals
to get started I guess and they're not doing the
same thing that I'm doing, but they're they're trying to
trying to start a program like ours because it's so.
Good for the inmates and and the animals and the public.
It's just kind of a threefold all win-win, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
For the inmates, is this considered like therapy or rehabilitation
is there to it
or
Speaker 2 (04:32):
yeah, there's definitely structure to it. They can request to
be on the farm so they are not forced to
work on the farm. It is a volunteer program and
we primarily take inmates from the jail drug intervention program
so we partner with that program.
And when they get to phase two in their drug
program they can apply to work on the farm and
(04:52):
it is definitely therapeutic and I've seen so many changes
in the inmates that have worked for me on the
farm and the love that they feel for the animals
and the animals give them love as well and also
they'll come back and bring their families to visit when
they get out, which is the highest compliment that somebody
wants to come back to the jail and bring their
(05:13):
families and they're so proud of what they're.
Doing they're very invested in it so I would say
it's definitely a great rehabilitation type program but people ask
me sometimes, are they, do they ever want to go
start doing their own zoo or their own farm or
work with animals but our facility is a detention center,
which means they're not there for years and years they're
(05:34):
there for less than a year so you can be
sentenced to 364 days and be at our facility, not
more than that. So if you're sentenced to more than
that you're going to prison.
So they're not there really more than a few months
to a year. So if you're a plumber and you're
only there for a few months, you're not going to
learn enough to really start your own zoo or farm
(05:56):
you're gonna go back to your plumber job when you
get out of jail. So it's really just something to
pass their time and to give back to the community
and make a difference by taking care of the animals.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Can you tell me a little bit about how the
program got started?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It started completely by accident. Uh, Sheriff Roth back in 1994, uh,
Becky Herron was a deputy, and she suggested to Sheriff
Roth that we round up the ducks that were crossing
the road between the golf course and the jail, the
Muscobee Ducks, and, uh, they were getting hit by cars,
so they said, let's round them up, put them on
(06:33):
the property, put them on this unused property under the jail,
which it was just a fenced air.
for fire evacuation under the jail because the jail's 11
ft off the ground for fire uh sorry for hurricane
standards I
Speaker 1 (06:47):
guess for people who might be listening from the Keys
1972 has to be the year but I know that
we have to be elevated so we're
11
Speaker 2 (06:58):
feet off the ground because people can't understand why I
say we're under the jail, but that's why we're under
the jail. But um there's a lot of empty.
Space under there and they said let's get the ducks,
get some inmates to round them up, put them on
this property, make a break area, picnic table, pond, and
the deputies can come down and take a break and
the landscaper can throw them some food, the ducks. Well,
(07:20):
the rumors started that we were taking in animals and
Sheriff Roth was a true animal lover, and he felt
like if people were just dropping off animals that there
was a need for a facility to take them so
that's how the farm began in 1994.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
OK, you don't remember what the second animal was by
any chance,
Speaker 2 (07:39):
do you? I don't, but one of the first animals
was a blind horse named Angel, and she came from
being abandoned up in the Redlands, and, um, Sheriff Roth
used to ride her in parades and things too, so
but she passed away before I came to the farm
so I've been there 20 years next year.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And so your animals are all either uh adopted or
confiscated or
Speaker 2 (08:02):
abandoned abused, confiscated or donated primarily donated most of the
time it's just a pet that somebody bought and it won't,
it's not a great idea to have a lemur, but
they don't think that through very well. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And then I guess probably one of the big ones
is uh they call them Korean potbellied pigs back.
In the day and they were just pigs, right?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, we have, I think a couple potbellied pigs now,
but they are one of the most surrendered animals and
back in the 80s, that was the hot pet to have,
you know, they were, they were the trendy pet and
people didn't think about how long they live, 20 to
25 years, how big they get. I mean, Vietnamese potbelly pigs,
it's like.
Maybe 80 pounds, but still that's big. They're not gonna
(08:45):
stay Chihuahua size, but they're not a 1000 pound farm
hog so people think they're gonna stay tiny, but they're
really not tiny when you look at how you know
80 pounds so those were surrendered quite a bit now too.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
OK, and um I mean are there any any animals
that you've been like, wait, no, we we can't handle that. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (09:05):
we are actually certified by USDA.
USDA certified zoo and we're permitted by USDA and there's
certain animals you can and cannot have on your USDA permit.
You can have a rider added to your permit for
big cats, for example, but we do not have that
so we can't have lions and tigers, um, but pretty
(09:26):
much anything else that's on on the permit we can have.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Do you
ever have a wish list of an animal
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I
had a wish list all the years that I've.
Been there when I first started there were only 20
animals and I had a long wish list of different
things that I thought would be great like a bull
or a cow, a donkey, a turkey. I was just
thinking small because I never dreamed we would have a
sloth and a lemur and a kota mundi and a
kinkadoo and all these odd exotic animals, but what I
(09:54):
did was branch out to or reach out to a
lot of different sanctuaries and rescues throughout South Florida. I started.
With in the South Florida local area if you have
a donkey or if you have an alpaca or you
know anything that needs a home, we have room because
we had a lot of empty stalls and a lot
of empty space so as people started learning about us
(10:16):
and we started getting more animals and getting more popular,
more and more people would reach out and ask us
to take their animals so we're about up to 120 now.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
OK um and you.
If someone came along with a great animal that you want,
do you still have room or we do,
Speaker 2 (10:31):
we have room. I still have a wish list, but
the wish list is a lot smaller and more, uh,
specific now I guess. I don't just take bunnies all
the time. I mean, we don't need 500 bunnies, um, uh,
but I've always wanted to have a zebra, and we've
been close to having 12 or 3 times, but a
lot of other rescues want them too, so you kind
(10:53):
of get on the list and when your time comes
you might get one.
Um, but our thing is we only take the animals,
like I said, they have to have a story. They
have to be abandoned, abused, confiscated or donated, so I
can't just go out and buy a zebra, but we
do have a pair of sloths and we have lemurs,
we have foxes, armadillos, skunks, quadramundi, kinka Jews. We've got
(11:14):
a lot of these.
Exotics I really started going from just farm animals to
branching out to taking some of the exotics that needed
homes because people buy these pets and they think they're
cool but normally they're gonna get aggressive as they get
older and so when they start biting that's when I
get the phone call.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Wow, um, and you guys, you guys have, well, I
think what I would consider the first celebrity animal in
the Keys which was Moe Moe the sloth
Speaker 2 (11:40):
where did Mola
Molasses came from.
Uh, Peter Perente, who lived in the Keys on Sugarloaf,
and he had Tucker the Kinka Jew who I still have, um,
mow the sloth, Maggie the sloth, and so he donated
Maggie to me first, and Maggie was a wild caught
(12:01):
sloth that we think was probably brought in to be
a breeder back when that started to be the thing
when people wanted sauces.
Pets, so she was never handleable, um, and so she
just stayed in the aviary but a lot of people
didn't even know we had her because I couldn't carry
her around but then he decided that he wanted me
to have Moe so he gave me moe and Mo
(12:23):
literally put the farm on the map. I mean people
were coming to have prom proposals with him and wanted
to come.
After their wedding to meet the sloth, and he got
invited everywhere. I did not get invited. Mo got invited,
so I was just his, his schedule keeper. So I did,
I literally traveled all over the Keys for 13 years
(12:43):
with Moe, and then sadly, a couple of years ago,
he developed bladder cancer and he passed away, but we
didn't even know he had cancer. He just passed in
his sleep and
He was probably about 2021 years old, and they lived
20 to 25 years.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
They probably live a little longer in captivity, right?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
They do less
stress and a lot more hazards and and predators in
the wild
Speaker 1 (13:05):
was he captive born
Speaker 2 (13:06):
he was captive born. He was raised on a bottle
and that is why I could carry him around like
that and he was literally like my right arm for
13 years. I mean, we went everywhere together.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Have you ever seen the photo of the family who
dressed up like you
Speaker 2 (13:19):
and know them and
And that was great. That was the best.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That was one of my favorite costumes.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Mine too, and people, she looks a lot like me,
so people were like, oh, we saw you in the parade,
and I was like that was not me, that was
Lindsey Nelson. But yeah, the Nelson family dressed up but
um I've had kids dress up like me for Halloween
with the brown outfit and the the stuffed sloth hanging
around their neck and what a compliment. I mean, it's
such an amazing thing to be such a big part
(13:48):
of this community for so long.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Um, and so you have two
new slots now, right?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I do. I got them in September of last year.
I actually never thought I'd have slots again. It's not
something easy to get, but
Um, there was a facility in North Fort Myers, a
zoo that was closing after 80 years, and they had
about 400 animals to rehome, and I had some contacts
in the, the news media up there in North Fort
(14:15):
Myers that gave me kind of a little heads up
before the public heard about it, and I contacted them
and I just sent a text to the person that
they gave me the contact info for and I said
I'm Jeannie Seelander with the sheriff's Animal Farm in Key
West and.
Um, if you have any interesting animals that you might
want to donate to us, we're more than happy to
(14:35):
take them.
And they wrote back immediately and said didn't you have
mow the sloth? and I said yes I did and
they said we want to give you our sloths. So
that's how it all kind of came together and during
Hurricane Helene I left here during the hurricane and drove
up there to get them and as they were closing
the bridges out of Fort Myers for the hurricane, I
(14:58):
got out of Fort Myers so um.
Um, those are my hurricane babies. I went and got them.
They're 9 and 10 years old, but they were breeders.
They were a breeding pair, so they were not handled.
They were not hand raised like Moe. So it's amazing
to have them, but you cannot pick them up. Everybody's like,
oh well, if anybody can make them friendly, it's Farmer
Jeanie no it doesn't work that way. So we just
(15:21):
enjoy them and let them do their thing.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
OK, OK, so, um, what do you bring to a
parade or a public event these days?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I've got lots of things to choose from, but parades
normally the miniature horses or the alpaca.
Um, everybody loves the alpaca in the Christmas parade. I
try to do her every other year, uh, Arabella, um,
I have several miniature horses, and I kind of rotate
them and do different costumes every year. I kind of
look forward to what I'm gonna dress him up as
(15:50):
each year. I've done the goats in the parade before. Uh,
Khaki Channel Bridge Run is coming up this Sunday, and Peanut,
the mini horse will go with me.
And she and I will be the first ones to
cross the bridge to start the race. So I've got
still quite a few animals that travel and lots of
smaller animals that go with me to schools and libraries
and everything too.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Let me ask you this, you've got 120 animals. How
do you manage in an organized way to take care
of all their weird and various needs?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It's a 24/7 labor of love. I mean, I, I'm
always researching and
You don't go to school for this. It's like no
matter how many books I read or how much knowledge
I learned from Doctor Doug or our vet or um
on the internet, you learn a lot of things the
hard way and just by hands on, um.
(16:43):
And a lot of times I learn from other facilities
that have these animals too, but I'm always researching and
learning what's the best habitat, what's the best food, and
we try to give them all habitats and if you
come to the farm you'll see they don't look like
they're in cages. We try really hard to make sure
they have great lives and great habitats because they're there
for their lifetime. We're not adopting them out. They are
(17:06):
there to spend the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
OK, so.
A lot of this depends on you. Do you have
other staff, you have volunteers? How does that all
work?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, um, we have the inmates, of course. The inmates
take care of the basic daily needs for the animals,
so they do the feeding, watering, cleaning, um, they follow
along when the vet comes, so they get to be
a part of everything going on. They also help us
build habitats and they paint and, you know, refresh the
the colors on the stalls and everything so the inmates are.
(17:37):
are essential I would say then 5 years ago they
kind of decided maybe.
I needed some help because I was doing the landscaping
of the entire jail property with my inmates, the farm,
and traveling throughout the Keys with animals and community events,
so I was kind of doing three things and kept
asking for help with the landscaping because the job started
(18:00):
as a landscaper, remember I told you that when it
started they would have the landscaper feed some food to
the ducks. Well, it started as the landscaping job and
then kind of morphed into.
The farmer job. So the farmer also has always taken
care of the jail landscaping, but that's a lot when
your animal population starts growing.
(18:21):
So I kept asking for help and finally they let
me hire an assistant. So 5 years ago I hired
farmer Sandy, and she's been amazing and she's my right
hand and she helps me with everything except she does
not love to travel with the animals so I do
all the outreach and then she likes to be there
on the farm doing all the the farm stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
OK, and um I guess this is the time to.
it up, but my wife kind of like was shocked
the other day when she saw an ad, an ad
for your job. So what the
hell?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Well, um, I'm, I've been doing this for almost 20
years next year and decided it was time to pass
the torch. So I have actually found someone that has
checks all the boxes and has all the qualifications I
was looking.
For which truly is a needle in a haystack, and
I had asked, I've been looking for about 2 years now,
(19:15):
and I had asked the um command staff that I'd
be allowed to train my replacement for at least a
year because this is a lot of stuff to pass
on and um not everybody just knows how to walk
in the lemur cage and handle the lemurs so they
agreed and so once this person finishes their.
Pre-hire screening and everything. I'm hoping they'll start in May
(19:37):
and I will get a chance to introduce my replacement
to the public and change is a good thing. I
keep telling everybody it's I have put my touch on
the farm for 20 years and this person has some
great ideas and really fresh new motivation and I think
she's gonna put she's gonna bring it to the next level.
So I am going to pass it on to somebody
(19:59):
to put their touch on it now and I have
done so much to make sure that it stays a
part of this community and stays a part of the
sheriff's office and we always call it the sheriff's gift
to the community because everything we do is free we,
it's free to come to the farm and visit it's
free when I travel around with the animals so it
doesn't cost the community anything is it's our gift to
(20:20):
the community.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And so, so how much, uh, taking the animals out
and showing them to the community, how much do you
do like school
trips or
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I do that all the time. I have school groups
that come to the farm, so like a field trip
I give an hour long tour and bring out different
animals for them to pet and teach them about the animals,
but then I, some places can't travel to me, so
I go to them. Um, sometimes 3 or 4 days
a week, uh, this weekend I have 2.
(20:48):
Things I'm going on a Saturday. I'm going to the
Navy base at or the military base at Sigsbe to
do the extravaganza, and I'll take animals to that. And
then Sunday I have the khaki bridge run, so I
don't get very many days off. I just kinda I
love what I'm doing, so I really enjoy going out
in the community and doing the stuff I do rotary clubs, libraries, schools,
(21:12):
you name it.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Uh, so at the beginning of all this, were you
worried at all about working with people who were in jail?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, that was a concern. I had never even been
to a jail. And so when I found out it
was at the jail and I called and I said,
can I please come spend a day on the farm
and see what it's like to work with the inmates
because I didn't know.
It seems scary to me, but I went and I
spent a day and um, I followed around and I
was like, hm it's not so bad they're regular people,
(21:42):
they're just doing their jobs. So I applied for it
and I got it and then I had a little
8 hour orientation like my first or 2nd day on
the job and, and uh they were telling me about
what to do if I were held hostage.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Which is a normal job training thing,
Speaker 2 (22:00):
yeah, that's something that you find out about you every day.
So that concerned me and they said um.
The men in black will come. The people in black
will come, and I'm thinking, what in the world are
they talking about? Were
Speaker 1 (22:13):
you expecting like Will Smith and No,
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I don't even know if that thought didn't come to
my mind. I was just concerned about the fact that
I think what was going through my mind is the
inmates could kidnap me and hold me hostage, so I'm
not really thinking, but I didn't know what she meant
when I, the sergeant was telling me about the, the
men in black will come, and it was just we
used to have a.
Cert team and that that it's been disbanded but it
(22:38):
was a special team at the jail that they wore
black and that if maybe an inmate wasn't cooperating and
they needed to extract them from their cell or they
were causing trouble, that was the specially trained team that
would go in so I guess that was the the
team that was gonna come for me if I were
held hostage, but I went home that night and seriously
(22:59):
considered whether or not I had made a good decision, so.
Um, yeah, I had some concerns. I really did, but, um,
it's you just never let you wanna never let your
guard down, um, but these are regular people that have
made mistakes and they are just trying to do their
time and get out and get back to their life
and to their family, but when you first start doing
(23:23):
this it's a little, it's a little unnerving because you're
not really sure what you're doing I mean I've never
been in law enforcement or anything. I was literally fresh
off the turnip truck.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Wow, OK, well, but it's worked out pretty well. Can
can any prisoner or not any any inmate be a
um work at the jail?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
No, no, they, I can't have any that are child
sex offenders, child abusers, animal abusers. We have kids that
come to the farm all the time. These inmates are
very carefully screened to make sure that they are suitable
to work on the farm, so not just any inmate
can work on the farm. We call these the cream
of the crop inmates. OK.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
And is it kind of.
It's a privilege to be able to
work.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It is, it is, it is a privilege to work
on the farm and the sergeant that screens them makes
sure they're not a flight risk and make sure that
they are safe for me to work with so that
I'm not gonna have anybody that's trying to attack me
or hold me hostage or anything like that. So they're
very carefully screened and then I can determine whether or
(24:23):
not they stay on the farm and now that I
have my assistant Sandy as well, same thing I told her,
you know, if they even look at you wrong and
you're uncomfortable.
We can remove them. We are not forced to work
with them and they are not forced to work on
the farm, so it has to be a happy agreement
for everybody involved.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
OK, that's great. So I know, I know it's wrong
to pick favorites, but if, if you had a current
favorite animal there, what would it
be?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Well, I always used to say I love them all.
I mean they're they're my children. Um, of course, was
was a huge favorite, but now I, I
I have to say it's Tucker the Kinkadoo. I've got
a very special relationship with Tucker the Kinkadoo, and he
came in with Moow the sloths, and I've had him
(25:11):
since he was 5 years old and he's about 21
or 22 now and he, I'm the only one that
holds him and takes him out and, and, uh, he's just, he,
he's kind of a cross between a monkey and a raccoon,
a ferret, he's, it's long skinny animal with a prehensile
tail and a lot of people have no idea what
a kinkadoo is, but.
(25:31):
Um, when the kids come to the farm for the tour,
I take him out and he likes to hang by
his tail, so I show him his little trick and everything,
but yeah, Tucker the Kinky Jew has a special place
in my heart.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Um, and I'm trying to remember where kinkatoos are from,
is it?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Central and South America, so they're from the rainforest and
they're nocturnal, so typically you won't see them. You might
hear them at night.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
OK, um, cool, and hold on, Britt just handed me
a note.
Alright, so this is a question from Britt. We're gonna
ask it and he said he's asking if you had
to compare Captain John Crane to any of the animals,
which would it be? And first, who is Captain John Crane?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Oh, Captain John Crane is our operations captain at the jail.
And as a matter of fact, he just came to
Easter on the farm last Sunday. He's been at the
jail for I guess 20 something years and it was
his first Easter on the farm, so I was really
excited that he came down to see what we do.
(26:37):
I don't know what animal I don I don't, I
don't have an animal that I would compare him to.
I would have to think on that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
OK.
Um, well, we'll do that if you when you come
back for your exit interview you retire, you got like
what a
Speaker 2 (26:52):
year I have a year and a half, yeah, and
you know it's not set in stone. I just wanna
be sure this person has been to all the events
that I normally go to and met all the people
and been introduced to the public and learns how to
handle each animal and can do all the paperwork and
all the invoices and the ordering and the.
Supplies and all the other stuff I do that people
(27:12):
don't realize I do because people just think I pet
animals all day
Speaker 1 (27:16):
and I how much of the job is petting
animals
Speaker 2 (27:18):
is almost zero. I mean, I, in the afternoons, um,
I roll out a cart with all of the prepared produce,
the meals for all the animals with all the cut
up produce that we give them. I roll it out
and hand it to the inmates and I usually take.
The bowl off the top with the sloth food on
it and the inmates all know that if I am
(27:38):
there that I am feeding the sloths and one day,
a few days ago last week, I wasn't able to
because I had something else going on. I think I
had a tour coming and so I left it on
the cart and the next day when I went to
get it off the cart, the guy, the inmate says
to me, I fed him yesterday. I hope you weren't
mad at me.
I'm like, no, if I leave it on the cart,
(27:58):
it is for you to feed, but I said it's
the only time I ever get to interact with the
animals is when I get to, you know, feed them sometimes.
So I usually try to feed the sauce. They're just
certain things that I just want to be able to
have a little bit of time with each day. But
when I first started and there were 20 animals after
the inmates would go upstairs, I would go sit.
(28:19):
With them I would sit with the pig and I
would groom the llama and I would spend time with
every animal and now I'm lucky if I get to
put eyes on every animal sometimes now it's just a
whirlwind of stuff going on and one of the people
that interviewed for my job was like, oh how much
time will I get to spend with the animals? and
I said, not very much. So if that's what you
(28:40):
think I do, that's not the job for you.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I, I have one question which you may not, may
or may not be the answer, but you guys took
the goats in that used to be on the navy base, right?
Do you still have any of them?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
And originally in 2002, I started in 2006 and apparently
in 2002.
The Navy adopted the goats from the farm that were
the original goats that were out at the Seminole barracks
at Truman Annex to to mow the grass on the barracks. Um,
and so they found they thought it was fitting that
(29:14):
when they decommissioned the goat program and retired the goats
and they had an official decommissioning ceremony for the goats
and
Um, retired them to the farm and there were 4
at the time that I got them and I actually
still have 2. I have Tank and Zeus. They're still
at the farm. Wow,
Speaker 1 (29:32):
that's
great. I remember I used to walk down Olivia and
then you know you wouldn't be thinking about a goat
calling them, you know, but
Speaker 2 (29:42):
it just changed a lot down there.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
And how do you how do you acquire something like
an alligator? Like is it is it wasn't a wild
alligator
Speaker 2 (29:49):
and alligator.
A unique situation or unique part um because that is
the only animal I do not keep for its lifetime.
When I was at the aquarium we wanted a pair
of alligators, so I went up to the Everglades alligator
farm and met Gator Bob who was who ran the farm.
(30:11):
And I learned how to catch them. He took me
out in the pond. He goes, come on, we're gonna
go catch your alligators, and I was like, what? So
we waited out in the pond and he's like, you
don't wanna catch any of them that are like coming
towards you.
Because those are the more aggressive ones you want to
catch the ones that are gonna sink down because those
are the submissive ones. So that's a good tip, yeah, exactly.
(30:33):
So we caught the alligators and while I was there, um,
Doctor Doug, our veterinarian said we're getting one for the
farm too, and at that point I didn't even know
what the farm was but we were.
Getting an alligator for this farm, so I went and
caught 2 alligators for the aquarium and one for the farm,
and then I dropped the alligator off at the farm
(30:54):
and that was the first time I'd ever been there
and I never knew that I was gonna work there
and run the farm when I took the alligator there
but what we do is every few years when the alligator.
It's too big to handle, we take it and we
trade it in and they rent gators, so I think
it's just $50 a foot or something like that, but
(31:16):
they don't charge us because we're a nonprofit so basically
we care for this gator until it's about 4 or
5 ft long and then when it gets too big
for us to carefully safely handle for the children.
I take it and I trade it in for another alligator,
so that's the only animal we do that with because
it's a native animal and also it's such a great
outreach animal to have to be able to teach the
(31:38):
kids about one of our native animals that lives here
in the Keys with us, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That that's pretty good. I just love the fact that
anytime I've had a chance to touch an alligator or crocodile,
their room temperature.
They're always the temperature of where you are. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (31:53):
sometimes they're really cold, yeah, when I get it, when
I travel to different places, I'll say sometimes um this
alligator is really cold because it's been in my air
conditioned truck and they'll literally be really cold and then
after it's laid on my arm for a while it's.
In the heat from my arm and it'll start waking
up and warming up, but yeah,
Speaker 1 (32:11):
do
they get a little more docile when they're just
Speaker 2 (32:13):
like snakes in the wintertime, you know, if you step
on a snake in the wintertime it's not as likely
to bite you as one in the summer because they
they're slow their metabolism so much.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
We do on occasion get hurricanes down here and there's
kind of stories about what what happened when Hurricane Irma
hit with you guys.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
We have to always be prepared for hurricanes because it's
a common thing here, but during Hurricane Irma, um, we
thought that we might be getting a direct Category 5
hit on the Keys and so the sheriff originally earlier
in the week had determined that we weren't we, you know,
it's a fluid thing you never know what where it's
(32:52):
gonna hit or where it's gonna go you just have
the cone.
Um, and so we were like, OK, it's not gonna
be a direct hit. So earlier in the week he
said we're not evacuating because if the inmates and the
deputies don't evacuate the jail, I don't leave with the
animals because that's my workforce right there is the inmates.
So I was like, OK, it was Tuesday, Wednesday they
(33:14):
decided we weren't going.
So I called off my hauler that would have come
to pick me up and I had a farm that
I was gonna go to on the mainland and a
monumental task. I can only imagine how it would be
to have to evacuate the keys with these animals and thankfully,
knock on wood, have never had to do that but
that was what was gonna happen so then.
(33:35):
Come Friday afternoon we went from Tuesday where we weren't
going anywhere to Friday 5 o'clock I got home and
I was gonna crate all the animals on Saturday. I
had everything prepped and ready. I was gonna crate them
and move them to different areas just for safety. I
get a call on Friday at 5 o'clock from Becky
Heron and she says.
(33:55):
If you need to move your animals, you need to
come now they are evacuating the jail and I said,
What do you mean they're evacuating the jail? She said,
they are going to Palm Beach County with the inmates
and the deputies. So if you need your inmates, you
need to come in now. So I threw my uniform.
For back on she said well she says what are
you gonna do? And I said, Well, I'm gonna stay
(34:17):
and she said well I gotta make sure that's OK.
I said no I'm, I'm staying. I am not leaving
my animals and so she said, OK, I'll I'll make
sure that happens. So, um, because she was my supervisor
at the time. So I went in and I got
my inmates and we started creating animals and it was
about 757 o'clock it was already dark by the time
(34:40):
that we started.
And the animals were sleeping. It was easy to catch
some that are normally a little difficult to catch because
everything was sleeping, so we were kind of surprising them.
So my inmates helped me catch all the animals. It
took us 8 hours.
And we moved them on the loading dock elevator into
(35:00):
the cells in the jail. All the animals and the alpacas,
the horses, the goats, the sheep, the pigs, the, the sloths, everything,
anything that could go in a crate was in a crate.
Anything that couldn't go in a crate was just getting
on the elevator and getting in a cell once we
got off the.
Elevator. So it was Noah's Ark. I mean, I said
the jail has now become the ark. So the last
(35:23):
bus that was leaving at 2 o'clock in the morning,
they came to me and they said, your inmates have
to be on the last bus. And it gives me
chills to think about it, but as they're leaving, they're
waving and they're yelling out the window, we love you,
Farmer Jeannie and
You know, it's just the love they have for the
animals and how hard they work on the farm and
everything that was so special that they all pitched in
(35:46):
and helped me move every animal into the jail, so
I lived there for two weeks with no power, no water,
no air conditioning, and of course I had all my
supplies so I was OK, but um.
That was that was quite an experience so people say
you need to write a book so I started kind
of literally putting things down so I wouldn't forget any
(36:07):
of the details and I've kind of jotted everything down
on the computer, but I've never had time to actually
write the book but yeah that was quite an experience
which I hope never to have to go through again
but um never imagined that they would ever leave the
jail and that I would stay behind.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That's a great story. And let me, let me ask
you about this is, so you spent all day working
on a farm with all these animals and then you
go home to how many Chihuahuas?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I have 11 right now. I have 10 plus a
foster and I have my own.
Chihuahua hospice for senior Chihuahuas and it's called Rivers Wish
Inc and River was my very first senior hospice Chihuahua
and unbeknownst to me I never thought I would be
rescuing these senior Chihuahuas and have my own 501c3, but
(36:56):
I saw that there was a need for these dogs
that had been.
Um, they're old, their owner dies, and they're ending up
in the shelter, and they have some type of major
health issue. They have heart failure, kidney failure, cancer. Nobody's
gonna adopt a 19 year old dog with cancer, let's
(37:16):
be real. So I adopt those dogs and I adopt
the ones nobody wants. So I work very closely with
the Florida Keys SPCA right there on.
College Road, um, I've got just an amazing relationship with
them and they will call me when they have that Chihuahua,
the one that nobody wants, the one that is biting everybody,
(37:37):
the one that they do not want to walk in
the cage with and handle, those are the ones that
I take. And once those little tiny dogs get out
of the shelter, it's amazing how much they decompress and
they're not that crazy little ankle biter and they come
to the farm.
And they have a great life they enjoy when people
come to the farm to visit they enjoy the inmates
(37:59):
and vice versa. The inmates love having the dogs around
and I have kids tours come to the farm on
a regular basis for field trips and they hear them
barking in my office because I'll put them in the
office when I have the tour going on and a
lot of the kids know I have Chihuahuas and at
the end.
They're like, can we see the dogs? So I will
let them out and have all the kids around petting
(38:21):
the dogs, and it's just, it's great enrichment for these
little senior Chihuahuas. So I keep them for the rest
of their life. Some of them, I think the shortest
time I had one was 2 weeks, and some of
them I've had for a few years and just managing
them with medication and, and care, but yeah,
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I mean, but.
It tears my heart at the end of their life.
It's gonna be so
Speaker 2 (38:42):
hard and it's a lot of work. People don't realize
how much it's like taking care of an elderly person
that has health issues. I mean it is a 24/7
thing and a lot of times if I weren't able
to take them to work to.
To the farm there's no way I could do this
because some of them need around the clock care or
you know you can't just leave them in the house
(39:03):
for 8 hours because they're a little bladder they're old
and they have to pee so they come to work
and they can run around the farm and and I
can take care of them while I'm working. Wow,
Speaker 1 (39:12):
that
is that is amazing. I am so impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
I have one that I take to um.
The rehab center, the Palm Vista rehab center down the
down the street on College Road, his mom went in
the rehab center, his owner, and she's in her 80s
and she's probably not going to come out of the
rehab center and her little dog ended up at the shelter,
but he's one of those crazy biters that nobody wanted
(39:38):
to pick up and.
So they called me and they said, will you take
him and they told me the story about the lady
being at the rehab center and I said, would she
like him to visit? And they said, absolutely the daughter
tried to come and get him and he was just
crazy so nobody could could catch him or or handle him.
Um, so I take him on Sundays and I visit
(40:00):
her and it is the light of her day to
see her dog and all the nurses know him and
everything because they all know Frankie's coming to visit his
mom and they say, oh, is that Frankie? So it
just really warms my heart to be able to do
that for her and bring her little dog to visit
with her.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
That's that is so great. But I, I just gotta
ask though, if someone rings your doorbell, what happens like
11 dogs, they all go off?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, yeah, luckily I kind of live at the end
of a secluded pathway, so it's not like just random
people come to the door, but yeah, it's even the
inmates say they are the best security because anybody comes
to the farm gate. I know somebody's at the farm gate.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I just, I managed one dog, you know, our dog,
and she goes crazy. I can't imagine
Speaker 2 (40:43):
it's
Speaker 1 (40:43):
like the chain reaction of
Speaker 2 (40:45):
dogs a great little security force.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Alright, well, hey, thanks a lot, Farmer Jeanie. This is, uh,
this has been on the Rock with Mark Hedden with me,
Mark Hedden, um, and, uh, we've had our, our first
guest Farmer Jeanie who's a great guest and thank you
so much for coming on and for all that you
do.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
You're welcome appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Alright,
Speaker 1 (41:05):
thanks.
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