zooomerang

i recently attended the annual black tie affair at the zoo. even the camels wore bow-ties. we ate fantastic food from local restaurants, and danced the night away. it was entirely exciting seeing people not only out of their uniforms but so dressed up. i wish i took more pictures, but was enjoying myself too much to remember to pull out my camera.

heat wave

it got so hot, we sheared the sheep earlier than planned. chris did droopy, and i did lambert. (lambert looks better, haha.) and i got to leave a poof on the end of lambert's tail. it looks so cute!


before


during


after...so pretty! (the sheep were cooler, and we were sweatier)

spring is in the air

it feels a lot like summer, though, with the warm weather we've been having. i am still getting used to the ALL DAY RAINSTORMS baltimore has to offer. in colorado, if the thin air manages to rain, it's for an hour, tops. but here, with the ocean so close by and what not, it will rain all day long, and since i work outside, i come home looking like i fell in the farmyard pond.

but i digress...i really just want everyone to see pictures of the prairie dog babies and the sitatunga!



p. dog babies are adorable. they act just like adults, but talk in higher voices. and jahari is such a handsome sitatunga, and he will come inside when called in return for apple pieces. joanie makes this hilarious face. as if i can take something as cute as her seriously when she shoots me a 'drop dead' look.

getting back into the blogging habit

me and my favorite cows. moo. brenna loves chin scratches more than anything, and bailey likes to lick my pants. i think i have been working in the farmyard so long now that my pants have absorbed the taste of hay. they are so cute. the picture was taken for a slideshow to be shown on the night of zoomerang, our zoo's annual fundraising gala.

also, our new baby elephant is out and about for the public to see. samson is adorable.
see?

baby elephant!!! plus: the circus! plus: bella training!

congrats to the elephant staff at the zoo for their new baby! felix gave birth to her 2nd calf wednesday night, a 290 pound baby boy! he is super cute from the pictures i have seen!! i was, of course, on my weekend when he was born, so i am so so so excited to get to work tomorrow to hear all about it. i love my job. (have i mentioned that?)



plus, tomorrow i get to go behind the scenes at the barnum & bailey and ringling
bros. circus that's in town for the next couple weeks. we will get to see how they travel with the animals, and meet a few of the trainers that work with the tigers, llamas, dogs, and elephants. i'm so excited, i love learning about and seeing different kinds of training.

**and an update on my bella training: my favorite little hog is doing awesome learning how to station. i ask her to go to her mat, and she has been doing it consistantly, so now i am making her pause on the mat before releasing her with the bridge (whistle) and giving her her reward. she held still for three seconds the other day while staring at me the whole time. yay, bella! once she is able to hold for an extended period of time, i will put the scale in there so eventually i can weigh her.

decorating

i am in the middle of trying to decorate my room, and find myself constantly drawing a blank on where to begin. i have heard it's a good idea to look at a lot of pictures you like, and see what they have in common to get an idea of your decorating tastes. but i think i have the most random tastes ever. i like the clean simple lines of modern style. but love lots of color. and things that don't really match but go together anyway. and bold prints. and now i have no idea how to mush all this together into a lovely room i will love sitting in. here's some of my favorite pictures, maybe someone will have better ideas than me:

i wish i was a giant...

i would play with people like this all day! and i hope their faces would be as absolutely hilarious as i did so! enjoy:

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/hillary.htm

opening day!

it's almost opening weekend, and we have all been running around like decapitated chickens to get the zoo looking pretty! i have swept and raked till my arms just about fell off, but i can't wait for people to actually be around. one: because it will feel less like i'm working in a ghost town, and two: because i have put so much work into giving the animals new toys and fixing up the exhibits, i want people here to admire it all!

plus, there is so much new stuff happening, i am so excited to be a part of it all! we have a new male giraffe, cesear joining our herd of females. i actually worked with a keeper in denver right before i left that was his keeper in jacksonville, fl, and helped train him before he left for maryland. so i was sure to tell him hi from her.

aaaaand, we recently got two new elepahnts: felix and tuffy (i know, but we didn't name them, haha). and if having a new male around isn't a big enough deal, the zoo finally anounced to the media that felix is pregnant and due any day now! can't wait to see the little baby. oddly enough, i turned on animal planet (more on the new logo later) and they were playing a documentary on felix! it followed her when she lived in the riddles' elephant sanctuary and was having her first calf, max. it was so cool to see how they managed her, and introduced all the elephants to each other to try to form a cohesive herd. and now they are doing the same thing at our zoo! this will be the first baby elephant born at our zoo ever. here's a picture of felix and max:

i am also proposing we get in a new breed of goats for our petting zoo: dwarf goats. they are super cute, small, and come in very fun unique color patterns. maybe we will get a dalmation spotted one!
(head tilt) "awwww!"

adventures in baking...♥

after the disasterous attempted birthday cake for marielle, sarah and i decided to go with just plain brownies to make for matt's birthday. but sarah found a great recipe and decorating inspiration and i got off work early since i only had my zoo orientation all day. so i got to work on the baking, and sarah took over the artsy decorating! and voila:

and when sarah said she wanted to make the same brownies as cupcakes to bring into work, i thought it would be a good time to try a delicious-sounding recipe i found on tastespotting: lavender fairy cupcakes. mmm... i can't recall every eating anything with lavender in it before, so the taste of the muffins was unexpected and wonderful. (i call them muffins because they were less sweet than i typically think of cupcakes being.) the taste reminded me of being in new zealand; the neighborhood i lived in had many many lavender shrubs cut into hedges that bordered peoples' property. walking to school on a sunny day (or even rainy, i love the rain and mist) was delightful.

miss me?

sorry i have been m.i.a. for a bit. it's been busy busy around here. and i ended up with a list of things to blog. and i finally had to skip wing night (!) to catch up with some stuff around the house. so one by one this weekend, i will knock out all the bloggity blogs i have swimming around in my head.

#1: the failed birthday cake. observe:

yep, in case you ever wondered what would happen when you forget to add baking soda to a simple chocolate cake recipe, this is it. flat. eggy texture. not very good. not like that stopped sarah and i from eating a couple peices...but not pretty enough to serve to marielle for her bday.

so we ended up making a pacakge of brownies and covering it with pink sprinkles. yum!

♥

thought i would spice up my blog for valentine's day. i love the pink craziness for the short month. i am going to post some pictures of the crazy decorations from my neighborhood. the people around here totally get into front window decorating. i thought it would only be for xmas...but then down came the tinsel and up went the pink colored tinsel. yay!

p.o.d.

i ♥ national geographic's picture of the day. always something new and pretty to look at. and often they are of animals. love it. (although, if you look at my pictures, my cows at the zoo are way cuter!)

grateful for graffiti

hahahaha. oh i love when my roomie sends me
funny stuff! is graffiti still a crime if it makes the sign better and hilarious?

i want...

cardboard robot: i think it's about time we get buck hunter pro uniforms and start a league. not sure i like the fur at all. otherwise i would get it fore shore. haha. the zipper pull is a bullet!

duckpin v. candlepin bowling

fact: a perfect game has never been bowled in the history of duckpins.

well, i gave it my best shot, and came away with a personal best score of 72 or something, taking a solid second place in one game. pretty much what happens is this: you get a ball that's about the size of a softball, grapefruit, shotput, etc. they weigh about four pounds, so bigger than bruce's head. there are no holes in the ball, so you just palm it and roll it towards the pins. there are ten pins, but short and cute! (see picture, please.) so no matter how hard you wing that little ball, you can only really take out so many at a time. buuuut... you get three balls per frame! yay!
it's very simliar to candlepin bowling which i have played every summer when we visit family in massachusetts. only candlepin pins are taller and straight! (see picture, please.)

bottom line: tons of fun!! the place we went was oh so trendy, had awesome food, wasn't a fan of the bowling rates hourly instead of per game, though. i ♥ the fact that duckpins are a baltimore thing too, i feel like a member of an exclusive club. haha


p.s. fact: this was one of babe ruth's favorite sports

survival tip #1

haha. thanks ML, for the link!

for all of you who dream of going to africa one day like me, here you go! how to survive an ostrich attack.

i actually worked with ostrichs in denver. her name was omlette, and she was quite sweet. we could go in her pen with her and with the male, named hamlet. she was totally facinated by the small holes on my belt. so i would be walking up to her, and BAM she'd bend down and peck my belt hard enough to nearly knock me over. it was a bit terrifying, especially in the summer months, with all the exposed skin on my legs and arms. although i guess a bruise from an ostrich pinch is better than being disemboweled by their sharp nails.

half man half tree

boo for TLC for incorrectly naming the show "half man half tree." it should have been called "horrible! don't watch this!" because, like sarah said, it was a train wreck; we couldn't look away. i didn't want to post a picture of the tree hands/feet on my pretty blog, so if you're curious, look
here.

and now i can't ever eat raisins again (not that i did before). and even though i am a bit of a hippy tree hugger, it might be a while until i can look a tree in the eyes again.

some people really do read it for the articles

a braile version of playboy. i was browsing marielle's blog which led me to start browsing taryn simon's webiste. very shocking and powerful pictures, for various reasons. check them out. i'm so happy to have friends who know so much about cool art and where to find it! thanks guys!

organ donor, voter, and citizen of maryland

it is official: i'm a maryland resident as of 12:15 this afternoon! i already have a maryland plate on my car, and i just got a new driver's license, which i actually like the picture on. even if i wanted to move now, the fact i'd have to take another pic for a license makes it not worth it! ;)

♥

the farmyard

i had another wonderful day at work. ms. bella the (formerly) evil hog is doing so well with me! i have gotten udder balm on her little feet every day for a couple weeks straight. woo-hoo. and she is recognizing the bridge, which means when i blow my whistle, she knows to look for her reinforcer (lettuce, grapes, sweet potato, etc.) so now the training gets to start! i am pumped.

a few pictures of my other farmyard pals:



brenna, a dexter cow. her and bailey, her half-brother, are super cool, love to lick shoes and fleece jackets that have hay dust on them, and walk better than my dogs on leashes.







lambert and droopy, 2.0 jacob's sheep. the ones who had mysterious color-changing pee that i mentioned earlier.







lloyd (white) and harry (brown). miniature donkeys. they are small.

happy 08

happy new years!! our NYE cocktail party was a total success. everyone looked great all dressed up, the house really came together thanks to my lovely roomie and her friends, and the food was delish (the meatballs, we decided, were made better by accidentally addding 10 times the bacon i was supposed to). i always forget how close our house is to the water, but we got to watch the harbour fireworks show from our deck...while playing with sparklers! can't beat that!!


and then i dragged myself to work bright and early this morning. and had another crazy day. the sheep's urine has been turning red once out of the sheep. at first i thought they were peeing blood, but it's normal color coming out, and only turns red in the air. weird! so hopefully the vets figure out that little mystery. then i had to catch the turkey to clip her wings, take skin scrapings, and clear her nose of dried mucus. i weighed the goats, and got to walk the cows around the zoo for a bit too. i love my job.