I just realized it's been three weeks since I was last at Little Zoo. I hate when our schedules conflict, but that just happens sometimes. I'm planning to go again this week!

Last time I saw everyone, I hung out with them twice in one weekend. The first time, I didn't actually go to them. They were doing a show near me, so I met up with Mallory and Claire at the church where the show was to be held.

There were lots kids and lots of adults, too. In the audience, I noticed a girl from my Statistics class last Fall! Our eyes met as Mallory introduced the show, and her face lit up as she waved and I gave a small wave back. I saw her whisper to the girl next to her, and I did the same, telling Claire, "One of my classmates is here!"

I got to handle the alligator first, and since they'd already done two shows that day before this one, Claire warned me he'd be a little excited. Hoo boy! Nothing like opening a crate door to a baby alligator who is full-on facing you, mouth gaping sharp little teeth at you, and hissing! Claire told me to reach behind his neck. I did it quickly, he flinched his head in an effort to bite me, but I'd already turned him, pulled him out, and had my other hand underneath his belly in a matter of seconds. "Good job," Claire whispered, and I beamed as I took his wriggly self closer to the kids. They all gasped and one woman made a joke about, "But alligator purses are so pretty!" Mallory light-heartedly teased her, saying we'll keep her far, far away from all the animals. The gator wriggled harder in my hands, and I added, "He heard you. Look at him!" Heh!

I also handled the baby wallaby and Socrates, the great horned owl, Linus the Loris, and the rosy boa. So cool! Except for the part where the rosy boa tried to strangle me! Well, sort of. See, she is pretty huge, and we had a few volunteers holding her. She got a little too rambunctious for them to hold onto steadily, though, so I took her and she wrapped her body around me to support herself. All was going well until she moved part of her body from the back of my neck towards the front and suddenly half my neck was being slowly squeezed by the muscles of this very large constrictor!! I calmly tugged at that part of her body as Mallory wrapped up her talk on the snake, and when Rosy popped off my neck, more of her body came with it, and I thought I might drop her. I didn't want her being unsupported, so I swooped an arm underneath her, and Claire rushed to my aid as well, and we put her safely back in her box. Crazy! But kind of cool, too. Heh.

Afterwards, I even got to say hi to my classmate and we hugged each other. She and a lot of other people told us how great the show was and we told the alligator purse lady to buy the fake stuff, because it's just as nice!

It was a really fun show.

Just a couple days later, I arrived very early at Little Zoo so that we could head out to an exhibit. We had a hedgehog, the porcupine, Socs the owl, a tortoise, a bunny, a toad, a skunk, and a duck. The duck was incredibly cute and did not fly away, even though she was free flighted. (She also let me pet her!) I'm glad she likes us enough not to leave us! Maybe she was under the illusion that she couldn't go anywhere because of the fancy canopy Mallory had purchased the night before. It was a regular canopy with a perk - netting on three sides! No intruding hands!! So the duck walked around by our feet. Well mostly, she sat on the edge of her swimming pool, but at any rate, she had a good time. The bunny was inside a wire barrier so she could eat the grass and hop around without fear of getting poked and prodded by millions of tiny kids' fingers. And then at one point, the duck and the bunny had a stare-down and then the duck pecked her in the head! She was promptly moved back to her swimming pool!

Anyway, it was a nice setup! It was a little freaky, though, because people surrounded the tent, which felt slightly claustrophobic at times. And while there were some obnoxious people, I tried to forget about them and concentrate on the nice people. There were plenty of them, too! The tortoise was a huge hit, since it was the only animal people could touch. I always thanked the kids for being so gentle. Every time the kids touched the tortoise, their parent asked them, "Isn't that neat? How did it feel??"

A lot of kids bizarrely responded, "Soft!" I think those kids might have meant smooth?

One child's response to "How did it feel??" was, "Like a tortoise!" Yeah. Duh, Mom!! Heh.

One dad said to his kid, "Would you like to pet the tortoise?"

His little boy responded, "I want to kiss it!"

To which the dad responded, "Um. No." Ha!

One little girl was priceless. She looked to be about ten years old, maybe? She asked something about the porcupine. Then, after standing there thoughtfully for a while, she asked me, "How do you know the animals are happy?"

Awww! I love when kids are concerned about our animals' well-being! I said, "That's a great question!" then explained how the animals give certain body language signs when they're calm or when they're upset and that all our animals were acting very calm. I told her the porcupine wouldn't be able to nap and the bunny wouldn't be eating if they were upset. She nodded with an air of seriousness and approval. I love kids like that!

And then there was the one boy who just wanted to chat with me about animals in general and excitedly proclaimed, "I like lizards!"

"Me too," I told him.

There was another woman who told us excitedly that she'd never even seen a hedgehog before in her life, and was so happy she'd gotten to. That made me very happy, because she opened my eyes to a different perspective; I'd worried our nocturnal hedgehog was one of our more "boring" creatures. I'm glad she didn't think so!

And there was an older couple who talked to me for a really long time, asking all kinds of questions, and finally said, "Well, I think you people are just WONDERFUL! Thank you SO much!" I loved them!!

And like I said, there were jerky people, but none that were too awful. Except for the newspaper reporter who insisted she should be allowed inside our tent, and when we said no, she got all huffy. And it wasn't like the New York Times for chrissakes, either. It was just a local small town paper that I'd never heard of before! She was way too full of herself for her own good! It was sort of amusing to make fun of her later, though.

The most frequently asked question of the day was when will the porcupine be old enough to shoot his quills. And I am here to inform the world that the answer is: Never. Porcupines can't shoot their quills. None of them. Not ever. No more than we can shoot out our hair. Quills drop away like hair, and when porcupines bump into other animals or people and the quills make contact, the quills will remain in the other person or animal and come out of the porcupine. But there is no shooting involved. There, that's your animal trivia of the day!

When we got back to Little Zoo, I put the tortoise away and said hey to Rufio. He leapt onto me and I hugged him and scratched him and with my face in my fur, thought, "I am so, SO grateful to be HOLDING a LEMUR!" I was in awe of this awesome experience and feeling such love for him, when he turned, uttered the start of a very loud lemur call and mock-bit my arm. That's primates for you - doing things that cause you to stick your guard right back up the second you think of lowering it! Wild animals. They are an interesting bunch to work with!! I gently put him down, and not wanting to end on a bad note, paused for a moment, reached out and scratched him some more, then left his enclosure.

That's when I saw two tortoises side by side, one excitedly bobbing his head and I said, "Woahhh, wait a minute! None of that!" and put the female where she was actually supposed to be, which was next door. Oops! Heh.

I also got to sit on the ground with Simon and let him climb me, chew on me and lick me, while intermittently sticking his head down my shirt and getting sand all over me. Crazy monkey! He was really good for a long time, then got weird and slapped me in the face, which was my cue to leave. Ha!

Lastly, I gave the baby porcupine some of his milk in a bottle, and he attacked it more than he actually drank it, biting at it repeatedly and only rarely suckling. I told him he'd be a goner in the real world, because no mama porcupine would take that kind of abuse! But he got enough, and then we fed him an apple piece, which he attacked with the same gusto and demolished in only a few minutes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Animals are weird! And I love them so much.