A Day at the Zoo

Getting a zoo membership was definitely one of our better decisions.  At first we weren’t sure because of the drive, but we’ve already used it three times and considering toddlers sometimes only last a couple hours, you don’t feel like you’ve wasted any money by leaving early.

Last Sunday ended up being just perfect for a visit to the zoo. The weather was nice and we got there a little earlier in the day, so it wasn’t super busy yet.  Most of the animals were snoozing, but Enzo seems to enjoy people watching just as much (if not more than) animal watching.

This time his favorite animals were the prairie dogs, and he tried to climb out of Josh’s arms into their enclosure, which would have been adorable, but probably frowned upon. We also had another big first – he actually held my hand to walk for a bit.  This soon ended once it got more crowded, though, and hand holding was no longer appropriate, but running was.

The other favorite of the day was the draft horses. We ventured over to the farm area because we figured it would be a good place to eat lunch (and it was), plus Enzo got to pet some cows, was freaked out by the goats, and fell in love with the horses.  When we started walking away from them, he headed back and was a little upset that he couldn’t stay longer or touch them.  Guess we need to find someone with a horse. :p

Critter Visitor!

We had a surprise critter visitor this week, which was kind of fun.  Josh was in the office and was pulling back the curtains on the window when he was greeted by this guy:

A muskrat!  We were kind of excited because we’ve never seen one up close before, and he’s really bigger then he looks in the photo.  He was just hanging out and digging around in the grass and snow.

They have such big thick tails and claws… I never knew that.  We kept an eye on him for a while as he slowly made his way around the yard, then decided to take a nap, which was really cute.  While a muskrat may not seem cute… wait until you see one curl up in a ball in the sun.  We kind of both wanted to go outside and squish him.

I did manage to sneak outside and grab a quick photo… curse the zoom on my lens for not going further!  New lens time perhaps? 😉

Alas, the UPS man showed up while he was napping and scared the bejesus out of him, so he hid in a corner for a bit and the next time I looked for him he was gone.

And then it was Monday…

I forgot how often my weekends were filled with schoolwork last semester. :p Granted, I’m trying to get a little bit ahead, so I spent extra time this last weekend doing lots of reading and note taking and essay writing. We did, however, leave time for a Twins game Friday night since I hadn’t been to the new stadium yet. It’s pretty nice… not that I’ve had much experience with baseball fields. 😉

On Saturday after lots of schoolwork and our bi-monthly shopping, we decided to grill, and thankfully Josh didn’t heat it up before checking under the cover because this little guy would have been toast.

Tree frogs are definitely one of my favorite things about living where we do.

On Sunday morning I pulled out a recipe for Apple Butter Pancakes, which I haven’t made in years. It’s a recipe from the Lightner Creek Inn that I grabbed when I worked there years and years ago.

Josh played games while I worked on schoolwork, I made lasagna, we watched X-Files, and before we knew it, the weekend was pretty much over.

I promise next weekend will be more exciting!

I’m a little nervous thinking about how hot this guy is going to be… I’ve never let a jalapeno get red before.

A few of my favorite things…

Right now I am loving how  many more veggies are ready for harvesting… we have tomatoes turning red (finally), onions, jalepeños, and even some carrots!  I can’t wait until we have a yard where I can try other things as well.

Despite their small size, Josh said the carrot (or at least the one that was darker) tasted really good!  Hooray for growing food!

Josh is away for the day (hanging with the boys), so I spent a few hours cleaning, which felt really good, watched a couple of movies, and then spent some time outside with the cats doing a little reading, and finding the cutest little frog on my marigolds.  I almost didn’t even see him, but noticed something looked off, so I got closer, and there he was!

Now I think it’s time for a cup of tea and some more reading, I think. Tomorrow we’re going to see Captain America, and it should be a good way to end a pretty relaxing weekend. Maybe I’ll even get some sewing done as I have a pile of things to fix for Josh (buttons and things that are so easy to fix, but also so easy to put off). 😉

A Tale of Two Squirrels

A rather short tale that began when, while camping, I foolishly left a bag of food unattended. I blame my thoughtlessness on lack of coffee. It was early and we wanted to be on the boat no later than 5:30, so we decided to forego coffee and just head out immediately. It was a nice day on the lake, and while we only caught a couple of small perch (pictures on Josh’s camera), we still had fun and returned to camp around 12:30.  I realized something was wrong as soon I walked over to the bag to pull out hamburger buns for our lunch. Our hamburger buns and bread had been fairly chewed on, and I figured that might be the extent of the damage.

Oh no. These squirrels were not satisfied with bread alone. As I pulled the bread items out, I noticed a hole had been chewed through the bag (one of those reuseable ones) and they had found my cookies. The cookies that were in a well-sealed container, and well-sealed it was. The thick plastic lid was still attached to the glass base, however, a nice big hole had been chewed through the lid and the squirrels hit pay-day. I estimate at least a dozen cookies were pulled out before they either ate their fill or saw us driving up.

So, lesson learned, and you can bet we made friends. The smaller squirrel, whom I called Stinker (seen below) returned often, looking for leftovers and wasn’t the slightest bit bothered our presence. Several times I’d look up and he’d be watching me at eye level in the tree next to our table, while I was looking for food or cooking. He also had a (camera shy) friend, whom returned often as well, and whom I expect to have eaten the majority of the cookies. Chunky Biscuit was morbidly obese and not a good climber, so there’s no way he pulled it off on his own.

Lesson learned.