The Colorado Adventure

Are mealworms pets?

22 Aug 2008 3 Comments

by liese4 in COVA, School Stuff

I’ll get to that later. Our virtual school COVA had a meet up at the Zoo today, thus dispelling the idea that virtual schoolers don’t get together. In fact, I bet 90% of the people there were with COVA. It took us 30 minutes to park and walk all the way from the science museum to the zoo (the lot and all 4 levels of parking were FULL!) Finally we got in, saw our ‘teacher’ Mrs. Beach and ate lunch. Then it was off to see the animals.

Notice the girls’ dresses?

I finally got rewarded for waiting for them at Wal-mart – $2, so I bought them matching red ones too. Anyway, first stop was the mongoose….mongeese….mongoose’s?

However you say it, they were fast asleep in little bundles, aren’t they cute? Ohhh, I just want to take one home. At the zebras we debated whether they are black with white stripes or white with black stripes.

Bethany was sure they are white with black stripes, I dunno, I still think they are black with white stripes. The tiger was very lazy, we yelled at him until he got up and growled and then he sat right back down.

I bet I could outrun him if I fell in that cage.

We got to see the newest baby giraffe, isn’t he cute?

He’s so tiny, compared to his siblings and parents. On Tuesday, August 12, Heshimu, a female reticulated giraffe, gave birth to a healthy six-foot-two, 164-pound male giraffe, named Timber. Mother and calf originally spent some quiet time in the Giraffe House, but Timber has proven to be very independent and the week-old calf can now be seen on exhibit. So, he’s only 10 days old and look already 6 foot 2”!

His siblings nudged him when they thought he was getting too much attention, my how the animal world mirrors ours!

We saw the polar bear; he was having a great time blowing bubbles out of his nose.

The buffalo were……….not roaming.

The hippos were eating, and let me tell you hippos eating are not a pretty sight.

In the tropical forest section we saw this giant catfish; yeah it’s a little bigger than the one we caught.

But the highlight of our trip to the zoo – getting to feed the birds in bird world. There was a guy handing out live mealworms inside the open bird area. I reminded Hannah not to eat them (she’s had BBQ mealworms before) so she went around handing them to the birds.

Grace kept going back and so did Bethany. Eventually everyone had cleared out and the birds were full, so the girls went around picking up the leftover mealworms and playing with them.

Then they decided they wanted to bring some home as pets. No, they were not the only kids to sneak out some mealworms for pets. We bumped into a fellow COVA schooler and friend from our HS group (I mean they are both of those things) and her kids also rescued the worms and took them home. When we got outside another little girl wished that she could take home a worm, so Grace gave her one. I’m surprised Hannah didn’t eat any; of course the ones she ate at the museum weren’t alive. So, that’s my story and we now have 3 mealworms in the earthworm bin at home. Cost of giraffe drink container to put the worms in – $3, having mealworms in our bin at home – priceless?

We bought some peacock feathers before we left and I hope you can see Grace’s new glasses.

They are gold Sponge-bob ones, with diamond looking jewels on the sides and no frame on the bottom. They look really good and they look really nice and new (since they are new for now anyway.)

On the way home we stopped by the post office to see the baby swallows before they fly the coop…..nest.

I think mama swallow didn’t realize she was having 4 babies, that nest is awfully small.

The babies are just about ready to fly off, but they still open wide when mama comes swooping in. Funny place to put your nest, right above the door to the post office, but it worked for her.

Joel had to be dropped off at Chatfield for the Rocky Mountain Balloon Festival in the morning. CAP is directing traffic, helping with lost kids, first aid and things like that. James is making an appearance tonight, but he has a flying lesson in the morning so he has to be home later. We’ll meet up with Joel tomorrow night for the balloon illumination, and then Sunday morning we’ll see the early balloon liftoff. If you’re in the area check it out, it’s neat to see all the pretty balloons and a big, pink energizer bunny balloon drift over the fields.