It has been HOT for days here, to the point that I had to dig out some Spring-like clothing and shoes.  Once I am committed to the winter season, which involves copious wearing of tall boots, I like to stick with that routine until late March.  This smattering of 70 degree days doesn't lift my spirits...it just makes my feet sweat.  I prefer the cold.

It's supposed to cool down a lot this weekend, so Charles and I are going to head over to this place called "Noah's Ark" where all kinds of awesome animals live, and you just pay whatever you want as a donation to go inside.  They just got in a new lion, tiger and bear (oh my!) that were all raised together from babies, as the story goes.  At first they put them all in separate paddocks, but none of them would eat, so they reunited them in the same area, and then they were fine.  They missed their buddies!  SO CUTE!!!!!   We can't resist a story like that, I tells ya.

I like going to animal places when the weather is cold, because they are more spry and active and visible.  In the summer everybody just lays around in the shade, and I don't blame them, but it makes for a sort of boring visit.  This place isn't a zoo, really.  The animals all have LOTS of space to run around, and most of them are there because they couldn't be returned to the wild or to a zoo for some reason, like the male lions who some fool was keeping illegally in his APARTMENT.  He had them declawed - which...who in the WORLD did that for him?  Who declaws lions??????  Being without claws meant that there was no way they could ever be placed with other lions that had claws, so the declawed dudes live together now in an enormous pen.  They seem happy enough, although I'm sure they would be happier running around free somewhere with claws.