Spring at the Zoo

Being a former horticulturst by trade, I am in love with the beautiful botanica at the Topeka Zoo! While other take photos of the animals, I spend my photographic time with the flowers and plants. The tulips are blooming right now and I thought I'd share a cheery collection of flora!

Scrappy Tiger

Just wanted to officially welcome our three new tigers to the zoo. As you can see, they are thrilled to be here! The lovely lady above is Kemala and she is joined by her sister, Sari, and her brother, Rojo. Kemala loves to hiss and spit and she's really good at reminding you why you don't want to meet her in a dark alley...

Burning Burnett's Mound

Monday, April 14.

Perfect day! Light winds...no ceiling...low humidity...perfect day for burning!

My brother, Tom, is the City Naturalist and he is in charge of buring the managed prairies in the city. Burnett's Mound is a managed prairie and this year is burning year.

Three years ago I helped him burn and it was a lot of work! This year, I took my kids up to the mound so they could admire their uncle's handiwork. After all, there is an inherant pyrotechnician in all children! Fire is beautiful and curious and mesmerizing. It is kinetic in its most perfect form, moving and jumping and hissing with each breeze. It fills the air with a primal scent, a smell that must have moved the first living things as it does us. I reminds us that the black char that is left in its wake will reincarnate in a few short weeks into verdant green. Three years from now, it will be time to burn again.

Daredevil Child

It seems the youngest of the Workman's is also the biggest daredevil.

Little Will is the most accident-prone kid I've ever met, most certainly the craziest one I've got. Several weeks ago he fell down and we spent the evening with the lovely folks at Stormont-Vail to get a bloodied eyebrow fixed up. Luckily, the fantastic ER staff was able to glue it and we didn't have to go through the process of stitches. After a few weeks it healed and he currently has a nice little scar.

Several more falls since then, but nothing major. Until Monday.

At about 9:30 in the morning, as I was preparing to feed our education animals here at the zoo, I received a call from Sue, our daycare lady. She said Will was running across the room (surprise...), and he fell face-first into a chair. Same eyebrow and same scar, she said. Crap. Well, I headed that way, fully expecting much blood. When I arrived, there wasn't much blood. And, in typical Will Workman style, there was no crying, either. He was happy and I checked the wound. Yeah, it was gaping. We needed stitches. But it wasn't the same place as last time. It was right next to the last scar! This boy is going to look like Frankenstein before he's 5!

So, off to Dr. Cooley's office we go. Nurse Jessica and Dr. Cooley agree that the wound needs mended, but no glue this time---Doctor is going for the stitches. Oops...

Will was happy until we all held him down and the needle went in with local anesthetic. Then the stitches, three of them. Lots of blood, lots of squirming by Will. Finally the mending was complete and we have a happy boy. He still has been running and falling as usual, but now he is giving me heart attacks in anticipation of the wound being broke back open before the stitches come out tomorrow. That boy...