It's December... Is everyone ready???

Though there is only a week and a half of class left, they have decided to put us through docent training. If you don't know, docents are animal eduators (I didn't know what they were when I started this program, if you had asked me before the program I would have told you it had something to do with music). They're the people you see around the zoo or in a school presenting animals to kids, etc. Totally cool because yesterday we got to handle all the education animals (education animals are animals that are used to being handled and are used to teach kids about animals and conservation). Many of the animals are reptiles, like Lucille the Ball Python, obviously we have some real comedians there!

These snakes are seriously easy to handle, even if you're afraid of snakes. They just sit there, curl into a ball (hence the name) and chill. Then there was the water snake which was much more active and would crawl all over your arms if you let it. The trick is to just let it crawl through your fingers and not squeeze it or anything.

We also handled the salamanders which were really soft and slimey. Very cool. Then the blue-tongued skink. He didn't do much but sit there, flicking his blue tongue. There were also geckos that we held. Those suckers are quick! (Edited: I had to take out the skink picture, it was mucking up my sidebar!)

If you're into the cute and furry types and not the cold-blooded scaly types, then you'll like these next pictures.

This is Chi-Chi, the chinchilla. Pretty much the softest animal you will ever feel in your life. Some really cool things about them are each hair follicle has 6 hairs growing from it, making their hair very dense. If a predator tries to grab them it will be left with a mouthful of fur instead of a mouthful of chinchilla because they have the ability to loosen their hairs when frightened. I could go on, but there's more to show!

If stinky and furry are more your thing, then this guy will be perfect. He's an oppossum. A very, very stinky oppossum. And he drools... apparently it's normal! The ferret was pretty stinky too.

Most of the animals we handled were given to the zoo by people who owned them as exotic pets then realized how much work they are to take care of and that they really don't make good pets. Don't buy exotic pets people, or at least do your research before you do. Grrr.

Anyway, it was a very cool day! So knitting, yeah, there has been knitting. I'm just now working on the thumb of the second mondo mitten. I was extremely bad though. I actually started a pair of socks. Don't get excited! They're for my brother, for Christmas. More Christmas knitting. Just 25 days. I have to start knitting faster.