The Como Zoo and Conservatory

Happy President's Day weekend, y'all!

I hope everyone is feeling smoov. R and I have had a very social weekend, including my inaugural broom ball game:


It was really fun! R made two goals. But now my legs hurt from falling and I have a bruise on my knee.

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great meal at home:

My first attempt at making crab legs; highly recommended!

These last two weeks in Minnesota have been pretty warm. We can all pretend that spring is here, but it's totally going to snow and get freezing again. When this happens, I recommend heading out to the free Como Conservatory and Zoo!

Sis KB and her fancy new bag in the foreground:


A sleeping sloth:


My nephew and god-child Baby B! (He was pretty tired by this point.)


Fun with the macro lens and the orchids:


Baby B enjoyed them too!


The flower building:


Some of the zoo animals are outside, however.

We wondered if the lady lion was expecting.

The American Bison!


A mama and baby giraffe:


Back indoors, a crazy monkey:




Leaf-cutting ants, which were so cool!


And a new heebie-jeebie inducing critter:


The Tanzanian Tailless Whip Scorpion!


Apparently these African dudes are fairly harmless; capable of pinching people but more likely to run away instead! They eat insects and make good pets! Yikes.

For some reason in my eight-plus years of living in Minneapolis, I have never been to the Como Conservatory! It was so humid and lovely in the buildings, and of course great to hang out with KB and Baby B and check out some critters.

So in a few weeks when everything still looks like this:


Hasten to the Como Zoo and Conservatory for a little of this:


xooxox
Wendell!

Giant Bumblebee Spotted in Twin Cities!

Oh, wait, it's our nephew, Baby B! Baby Bee, I mean!

xoxoxo
Wendell!

Wedding Weekend and Rodent Repost!

Hello everyone! I hope the month of May has been good for you so far! The sunshine was lovely today; I just took a nice bike ride. (Well, except for a smashed shin from trying to get my bike past the screen door and wooden door and up the stairs into our apartment.)

We had a great trip up to sister JHF and JF's wedding at Lake Winnibigoshish! I highly recommend the Bowen Lodge, where we stayed. The cabin was lovely, the lodge was beautiful and the hosts were very nice people.

Ze pictures:




Bridal makeup design provided by Wendell!

We had the pleasure of transporting R's grandpa and his wife up north with us. It was great getting to know them better and hearing wonderful stories about their lives!
Here they are in the horse drawn carriage.


While beauty was provided by JHF, the bride, cuteness was provided by our nephew, Baby B! Shown here with his beautiful Grandma, RB.


R and I took a nature walk by the lake, which the Mississippi River flows right through.

(It was a lot more wintry up there, four hours north of the Cities!)

I luv moss.



We ran into AB and RB on the trail; they had seen a porcupine run right up a tree! Indeed, we soon came upon the furry rodentkin!


It watched us as we paused beneath the tree.


As we walked to the end of the point and headed back toward the lodge, we discovered YET ANOTHER porcupine!
I would like to pet the porcupine, just a little bit on his forehead.



To learn about this defensive dude, I'll repost my Critter Corner Entry from 3/27/2007:

This critter was suggested to me by my dear cousin Miss Lippy. The porcupine!

Fuzzy! (But spiny.)

Porcupines are the world's fourth largest rodent, after the capybara (and mara) and the beaver. The average porcupine ranges from 25 to 36 inches long, has and eight to ten inch tail and weighs between 12 and 35 lbs.

In the big ol' Order Rodentia, there are two porcupine families. The eleven Old World species fall into the Hystricidae family, while the twelve species of our own New World porcupines are part of the Erethizontidae family. Interestingly, the two families are not closely related. It seems like the New World porcupines actually evolved quills as a form of defense separately (and later than) the New World dudes. For a large, slow and otherwise wimpy rodent, some badass quills sound like a good development.

The word porcupine comes from the French "porc d'epine" or "thorny pork". They are also called "quill pigs".

Superpowers of the porcupine include, um, its' quills, along with superb hearing, senses of hearing and taste. Eyesight is poor, though. They're also excellent swimmers, kept buoyant by their hollow quills!

Contrary to popular belief, porcupines don't actually throw their 30,000 quills at their enemies; they just come off easily when touched. The body heat of the attacker causes the quill to expand and sink in deeper. Barbs on the quill also deepen the wound if an animal (or person) tries to pull it out. An encounter with a porcupine can kill an animal, not usually from infection, but instead from starvation, as any quills in the mouth might prevent the victim from eating.

The fisher, part of the weasel family, is one of the few creatures that can kill a porcupine. A fisher will incapacitate the porc by biting its' nose, and then flips the spiny guy over and attacks its' furry belly. Porcupines aren't very fast, and can easily be clubbed by people. In Italy, Vietnam and some parts of Alaska porcupine meat is considered a delicacy.

Side note: Has Mario Batali ever cooked porcupine on his Molto Mario show?

Side note: Have YOU ever been stuck by a porcupine?!

Porcupines are strict vegetarians, enjoying leaves, twigs, ground plants and in the wintertime, tree bark. They can kill trees by eating all the way around a trunk. Although porcupines climb trees regularly, and may live in a hollow tree trunk, one Alaskan study found up to 30% of porcupines had healed fractures. This makes one assume that they fall out of the trees, too!

These rodents are mostly solitary, although they might snuggle together in a winter den. They'll live in caves and hollow logs as well as tree trunks.

Females are more territorial than males, but when nooky season comes along, in the late summer or early fall, males will expand the size of their territory over five times to find a honey. Upon meeting each other, the male porcupine will put on a squeaking and wiggling display, culminating in the process of urinating on the female's head. If she's into it, she'll back up, flip her tail over her quills (the underside of the tail is not spiny) and accept his love. If the female porcupine is not interested, she'll shake off the urine and leave the scene!

The gestation period for porcupines is very long for a rodent: Seven months. Usually one or two babies are born. Their spikes harden within the first hour, and they nurse for about four months. The baby porcupines then find their own territory in the late summer when mating season comes around again.

For cute!

Two more facts: Native Americans decorated leather with porcupine quills. Porcupines will seek out salty items like shovel handles and wooden canoes and then eat them to get the sodium!

I hope you liked learning about porcupines!

Happy Hump Day!

xooxxo
Wendell!

Critter of India/Baby B

Hello everyone!

Happy April 8th to you! Any adventures today?

Fife player PG is still in India and mentioned that the only creature she has seen so far is a chipmunk! Obviously I put her on total wildlife patrol...hopefully PG will take some pictures of exotic animals to share with all of us!

It is for PG, then, and all of you, that I repost my previous chipmunk entry from 10/8/2005:

I'm afraid to report yet again that I have neglected to share some very important information with you all. This is a subject about which I have known for several years: The mammalian penis bone.

It's true! There are some mammals that have penis bones, scientifically known as baculae. (I think Bacula is also the name of some computer program?!)

As you know, my Dad knows a lot about animals, and a few years back I was looking through one of Maven's "Jane" magazines when I saw the raccoon penis bone featured as a pendant on some Hollywood stars. So I discussed this with my Dad, who proceeded to "collect" a bunch of these things! Raccoon penis bones are about three to four inches long, and there was one otter bone in there, which was a little longer. I brought these specimens back to MN to show to my friends, and in fact gave them as gifts to people! (Mine currently resides on the kitchen windowsill.)

The reason I was reminded of the bacula tonight was because I was researching the chipmunk, which has one! Other species that have penis bones include bats, other rodents, dogs, mink, foxes, bears, fishers, beavers and badgers! The largest bacula belongs to the walrus, which can get to be over 20 inches long! Inuit people use this large bone as a club or as part of dog-sled harnesses!

Primates have penis bones, too! But don't get your hopes up, men; our cousin the chimpanzee's bacula measures only six millimeters in length.

So, why do these animals have dickbones? Scientists aren't completely sure, but do have some theories. Obviously, they help with erections. Dogs start intercourse without having a complete erection, so it is thought that the bacula helps the dog get started. The bone also acts to help the urethra stay open, which is helpful for creatures who have several spurts of semen. Scientists also think the bone helps to better stimulate females who require intercourse before they actually release an egg. Also for animals mating in water or upside down (bats) the bacula can assist in helping nooky occur.

Raccoons have the largest penis bone in relation to body size. Raccoon nooky lasts for a full hour, which belies the belief that the penis bone is necessary for creatures with much shorter copulation times.

Are y'all educated yet? I'm so excited to present this subject to you!

So learning about the eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus) might be a little less exciting. But maybe it will help if you picture their little penis bones?

There are about 25 species of chipmunks, which are differentiated from ground squirrels by the fact that chipmunks have stripes on their faces. Members of the Rodentia order, chipmunks are part of the Sciuridae family, which makes them cousins of the true squirrel, marmot and flying squirrel!

Cute chipmunks live in forests, near forests, and in suburban and rural yards. You can recognize a chipmunk hole because it will be about two inches in diameter and there will be no dirt pile outside of it. The chipmunk carries the dirt in his cheek pouches and removes it from the scene! These rodents have a territory that ranges from 50 feet outside its hole to a half acre. There are usually two to four chipmunks per acre on average.

From tip to tail the eastern chipmunk is about six inches long. They usually can be seen on the ground (playing grab-ass with each other as R and I observed) but will climb trees to get nuts. They also eat mushrooms, grains, berries, eggs, baby birds (!), insects and carrion. The chipmunks then hide food in their burrows, which contain several food storage chambers, a nest, side pockets, and separate escape tunnels. These chipmunk burrows can measure 20 to 30 feet long.

Chimpmunks, like skunks, don't fully hibernate. They rely on their cached food, and chill out when it is very cold. But the chipmunks wake up in March to make sweet love! Babies are born 31 days later, and become sexually active a year later. Chipmunks usually have two litters a year; the second mating season is in late July.

Chipmunk species are spread all over the western hemisphere, but there is only one species in the old world; Tamias sibiricus, which is closely related to the eastern chipmunk.

I hope you get to see and hear chipmunks soon, and that you think differently the next time you see a raccoon, chipmunk, dog, bat....

Ok, back to the present. Which is cuter, the above chipmunk chubby cheeks or our own nephew, Baby B?


(R placed Baby B on his skateboard; do you think B likes it?!)

xoxoxoxo
Wendell

Thrifting

Happy Sunday, Critter readers!

Currently the Patriots and Chargers are playing; soon the Packers/Giants game will commence! As my Motherland is Wisconsin, obviously I must root for the Green and Gold!

This weekend has been B family oriented as we babysat Baby B last night. It must be cool to be eight months old like our nephew; yesterday he learned how to clap his hands. I mean, that's a pretty big accomplishment!

From Christmas:


The critters have all been in hiding because of the cold weather! We've been busy; I helped PG celebrate her birthday on Friday night, while R had a boy's night at his former abode. Yesterday we had a delightful brunch, hosted by the H family and joined by the S family. Delicious! I zoomed to the Met Regional auditions, but missed mezzo AA's performance. Today we had a B family brunch, because JB and her fiance JF were in town from Colorado.

Because of the lack of critters, today I've decided to focus on another of my hobbies: Thrift Store Shopping. If you're not squeamish about buying used garments, I highly recommend shopping at Goodwills, Salvation Armies and the like. Also, it's a great idea to look at the resale shops of rural areas and smaller towns, as there might be more vintage items there. Here are a few of my favorite thrift store finds!


The skirt and jacket are from the Methodist Church thrift shop in my hometown; I just got the raspberry sweater (Ann Taylor Loft) from a Unique Thrift store last weekend with my mother-in-law. (A wonderful adventure!)




This skirt is brown, if you can't tell. It is the Elevenses brand from Anthropologie, purchased at a local Goodwill. The textured shirt, from Goodwill too, I think, is originally from Talbot's.

Look at the layers in the skirt!



These items are from two different Unique Thrift stores. I love the skirt, which I think will be a good addition to my summer skirt collection, which mostly consists of one ratty denim skirt I wear every day! It's Nine West Sport or something like that. The sweater was from Benetton and still had the tags on it.


I found this New York and Co skirt at a Goodwill this summer; the t shirt is from Old Navy and is from TurnStyle, a name-brand consignment shop.

One of the favorite things I own must be my coat collection! About 80% comes from resale shops, including these two treasures from the Burnsville Unique Thrift store:


This was in the vintage section; it's a real heavy wool knit. I think it cost $5.99, but I did dry clean it and purchased the buttons you see in the picture, and paid a tailor to sew them on. The buttons cost more than the coat!


This is Calvin Klein...possibly $5.99 as well?

A fall coat, from either Portage or Ripon WI, which I think my little sister K especially hates!

Velvety!

This week I joined my sisters AB and KB for my first clothing swap. I packed up a grocery bag of sweaters and random stuff I haven't worn in over a year. Usually I make a Goodwill drop off of unwanted items every spring and fall, at least, so I didn't have too much to give away. It didn't seem that anyone picked up any of my garments! But it was a chance to meet some new folks, AND someone put THIS in the purse pile.




What.

Yay, a new Coach bag for FREE! It's bigger than my other two, which I purchased for around $50 each at a resale shop and on Ebay.

You'll notice that there are no pants in my thrift hoard. I've had bad luck with finding pants that fit me, and usually have to pay full price for them. But, at the Goodwill in Burnsville, I did find this pair of REI brand men's zip-off pants:


I think they retail about $50 in the REI store. I have another pair of these I bought from that retailers "Scratch and Dent" sale; they had a broken zipper. I just put a paper clip on there and they work fine! These pants are perfect for camping and I couldn't pass them up for just $4.99.

I hope this post encourages you to go shopping at your local thrift store! It's a great way to fill your need for retail therapy without breaking the bank. Pick a day when you aren't in a hurry and feel like digging, and you could find some great new clothes!

My ultimate thrifting goals include finding a pair of Danskos in my size, finding cowboy boots, or some other kind of kick-ass boot, and of course scoring some flattering pants or jeans. But tomorrow AB and I are heading to Woodbury to check a new-to-me thrift store! I'll keep you posted about what we find!

What treasures have you found at the Goodwill?

xoxoxo
Wendell!