geriatric forest friends

Today Aunt Suzy and I took Oliver to the zoo for a class on "Forest Friends". It was our first experience with the zoo's educational programs but will not be our last. Oliver had a great time. The class was just for two year olds, and was split into two small groups of about six kids each. It last just 45 minutes but they packed it with coloring, making a bird feeder (a rice cake on a loop of yarn to which the kids spread crisco and then coated it with bird seed -- we may try making our own later but with peanut butter instead of crisco), making a bunny mask, reading a story, and meeting some animals. It was an interesting collection of animal senior citizens, including an eight year old bunny named Cecil and a three and a half year old opossum named Maggie. Apparently the average lifespan of an opossum is about one year, two if they are lucky. Maggie couldn't see or move her back legs very well, but we were assured she was not in any pain and liked her appearances in zoo classes.

We arrived at the zoo a few minutes early so we visited a few of the animals. Oliver liked seeing the tigers but really wanted to see zebras (success!) and elephants (too far away from our class location). The male lion we saw treated us to a little "concert". It initially sounded like he had a hairball but the keeper told us he was announcing his territory.

Tomorrow Suzy, Eleanor and I are going to see the Chihuly glass exhibit at the Phipps and in the afternoon we are all going to see The Green Sheep. So much culture, so little time.