Our annual Family Zoo Day went very well this year. I was a little cranky at first, but once I realized I was snapping at people, I made myself calm down and ended up having a very good time.
We rented the greenhouse again this year so we had a place to settle down and eat, without having to worry about any weather - which turned out to be nice anyway. The greenhouse cost quite a bit so everybody paid $5.00 per person to help cover it; that worked out very well.
The gardener at the Zoo does an incredible job with all the plants: that greenhouse is spectacular! The biggest job of the day is trying to keep Mother from pinching off parts of all the plants to take home and try to grow herself!
I made everybody play a game again, too. I made cards that had a letter of the alphabet on top and six categories listed down the side (Mammal, Plant, Bird, Fish, Insect, and Reptile) and we all had to come up with a name for each category starting with the letter listed on the top of the card. It was a pretty good game: everybody got into it and did three or four cards each. There were some rather inventive animals, I must say. My favorite was my niece Tara. She had the letter G so for the reptile category, she wrote Godzilla.
Once everybody had eaten their fill, we went out and walked around the zoo for a while. There’s a lot going on at the zoo this year!
Our new Amur tigers arrived finally! 4-year old brothers name Korol and Kunali, from New York. They’re gorgeous, of course. We could just see a bit of orange peeking thru the bushes back in the back corner. My niece, Lauren, kept wondering how a very large orange cat was able to hide so well. You would think they’d stick out like a sore thumb.
We have lots of new babies at the zoo this year: a baby musk ox, two baby caribou, two baby moose, a baby harbor seal, and a yearling camel. Best of all, we just MIGHT have (cross your fingers and toes!) baby snow leopards!
The baby musk ox caused a bit of commotion the other day = she got out of her pen and into the bigger enclosure with the big male musk ox. Poor thing got a little battered and bruised before they were able to get her back in the smaller pen with her mother again! Male musk ox do love to head-but things…
A few weeks ago, a cruise ship down in the southeastern part of the state came across a baby mountain goat standing next to its dead mother. They picked her up and brought her to us – we now have her in quarantine, and she is the cutest little thing! She cries all day, but is quite feisty and very healthy. Hopefully, she will go in with the mountain sheep once she’s big enough.
We also have a musk rat, a raccoon that had been confiscated at the airport, and a golden eagle that came to us from a rescue place down in Oregon.
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