Feeding time at the zoo

And no, I’m not talking literally about our house for a change…

The school holiday program at the Melbourne Zoo “totally rocks”, according to some very happy Zoo Detectives of mine. Despite a wild, cold day, the Jennings girls and gorgeous, but camera shy Tom Fewster headed off bright and early to detect their way around the zoo. Please excuse the amateur photos, with some trepidation I gave custody of my camera to the girls for the day and remember, they’re just kids, not gifted photographers ;) If they had their way, this blog would have 50+ slightly unfocused and honestly, rather boring shots of sedentary animals and plants LOL

The undoubted highlight of the day was a spectacular behind-the-scenes experience - getting to handfeed the giraffes, from inside the back of the enclosure – seriously! Now, there’s something different to write in your first day back “what I did in the holidays” essay. And just to show what a fabulously educational blog this is, did you know that giraffe’s tongues are 40 cm long? “More than a ruler Mum!” And they have 7 bones in their necks – “the same as humans, but longer of course Mum”. Amy got a little lion toy for being a good helper for - get this - sorting stick insect eggs – as you do. Apparently they are often deliberately laid in ant nests as they look like ant eggs, so the ants get fooled and look after them, clever little things. The things your kids learn, every day …..

It’s been a week of critters for us. As well as the event-filled afternoon rescuing Tiger the puppy (see previous post), I also had the experience of arriving at the school gate to pick up Amy and Sophie on the last day of term, to be greeted with a joyous “SUR-PRI-ISE”. A surprise that comprised custody of several class yabbies in a large fish tank for the school holidays – a surprise that was met with an ever-so-slightly forced smile on my part. In addition to a bit of an “ick” factor (they’re not exactly cute and cuddly pets and I’m a more traditional dogs and cats lover rather than a rodents and reptiles kind of gal), I had an immediate flashback to when I was a kid and we killed the kinder budgie on our weekend visit. Actually that really should read – the kinder budgie died while at our house – we didn’t actually torture it or anything, but oh the shame, it has clearly stayed with me in a post-traumatic syndrome kind of way. Do you think it didn’t like us and committed suicide???

I did manage to bail on looking after last year’s class mice (by the way, whatever happened to a nice simple class fish??) after having to put up with the smell each day in the classroom and being completely grossed out by the tale of what happened when one of the mice happened to have a litter of babies one weekend and then proceeded to eat the lot of ‘em! UGH just doesn’t do that justice at all…..

Anyway, please send good yabbie vibes our way for the next two weeks as I’m sure I could never face Amy’s teacher again if we didn’t keep her beloved crustaceans healthy. And I, for one, am sticking to dogs – nothing exotic or slimy around here!

And a quick link especially for Tom's Mum - the lovely and erudite Kate Fewster (who I'm sure wears the "bad grammar makes me [sic]" badge I gave her with pride):

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

http://www.apostrophepolice.org/mission


Its vital that you enlist, Constable Fewster and keep all of blogland safe from those apostrophe criminal's .....