Reptiles

Two really exciting things happened today....1) no hard-labor! and 2) I fed two of the black bears. I did mailings all morning....blah. Stuffing envelopes with sponsorship letters for our Poker Ride in November. I know this is a very important part of the center, but sitting in an air conditioned room for three hours stuffing envelope after envelope is not my cup of tea. But I did it...all with a smile on my face. Because of some of my connections in Hollywood, they have asked me to come on as a Chairwoman for the event....hopefully I can help raise some money for the animals.

After lunch, I was in the reptile class. This included learning about all the reptiles: snakes, lizards, turtles. We toured their housing and even got out and held a box turtle, a king snake and a python. We're taking a few snakes with us next weekend to the eco-convention.

Then I asked our big cat trainer Neil to show me the mountain lions. He gave me a tour of our resident locals. I made friends with Kiowa, one of the cougars we have there. She's a beauty and likes to meow and purr a lot. Her meows aren't really a meow, they sound more like a schreech though.

Then I stopped by to say hi to my friends Katanga, Leo, and Ghana, the lions I did some housecleaning for last weekend. They're always very affectionate rubbing up against the fence to give me their hellos.

And THEN....drumroll, please....I fed Cinammon and Kachanga, two of our black bears. They got ten pounds of mixed chicken and beef each. The bears were behind their enclosure and I slid the meat under the fence to them. So I wasn't exactly WITH them...I was still on the other side of the fence, but after putting in my hours, hopefully that will change soon. After feeding these guys, I have two new bff's here.

Then Neil fed Moran (my favorite lion) some pieces of meat. I wasn't planning on going back tomorrow, because I'm going with my sisters to see our friend Mike at the horseraces. Mike is a jockey and you can see him on JOCKEY'S on Animal Planet. But that changed once Neil said he's taking Moran out of his enclosure for a little stroll. I'm not missing that AT ALL. So I'll be back for a few hours early tomorrow morning....and hopefully have some great big lion tales for all of you. Then it's off to the races...