OK, so so far, I’ve not powered through my blogging like I thought I would. I’ll try again. I was off all week but did much tasking and no blogging.
May 23rd was Toledo Zoo ZooPal night, which, interestingly, was also opening day for some new things at the Zoo. People were crazy with new exhibit fever, and it was reported all day that the AW Trail was backed up with people coming from far and wide to see penguins, flamingos, and ‘keets.
Luckily, since you have to give money beyond admission and/or membership, ZooPal night was much mellower (and less crowded, of course). Since Brian and I are rad and occasionally gift each other ZooPals, we were invited. We’d not actually attended ZooPal night before, but I’d give it two thumbs up, would attend again.
The Africa! train was half-price ($1.25!) for ZooPal night, so we enjoyed our first trip on the train together. I had been on the train before when it first opened years ago, when the train struggled to get up a hill on a wet morning – after several attempts, we had to exit the train and walk the last bit to get back to the train station and freedom. Luckily, they have worked out the kinks in the last 10 years.
That night, the views from the train were quite nice:
Since the penguins got some new digs, their old habitat was vacant. The ducks moved in, and the new flamingos moved into the ducks’ old home. Flamingos:
We saw some elephant enrichment:
Brian in the reptile house:
Much-touted, but very crowded (and annoyingly policed), penguin exhibit:
Around the middle of may, a very slender Nasim (or another batfriend) returned, and I was very pleased. He was around a little while but hasn’t been back. At least he survived the winter:
I have been trying to develop my eye for noticing cool nature things, so I was very excited when I spotted a luna moth when we were out on an evening walk:
This year’s new flower bed (inspired by a gift of many many ferns from Bossman):
Here’s how other parts of the yard were looking in May:
After we had the concrete sidewalk leveled and it became apparent that there’s not really anything I can do or pay to have done to level the stupid brick wall out front, I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep it from falling any further into the Earth. I rerouted the downspout to empty on the other side of the wall further from the house using slightly off-color downspout pieces from Menards, a hacksaw, and moxie:
