Question of the Week

What was your most memorable wildlife experience?

Chick Cheryl  I think I was in 5th grade when my class took a field trip to the San Francisco Zoo. I had long straight hair. I thought the little monkey in the cage was so cute. He wasn't a huge gorilla or even a chimpanzee, but much smaller, like the ones you see on an organ grinder. Anyway, I was real close to the cage smiling at him, then turned to get my friends attention and that darn monkey reached out, grabbed my hair and pulled it for all he was worth. I felt like my head was hugging those bars for at least an hour, but I'm sure the zoo officials got things under control in a matter of minutes. I guess you could say I'm sort of like "Madeline" now: "and to the monkey in the zoo, I just say poo-poo." (Only the mothers of little girls will get that one!)

Chick Jeanette  What about the "fire ants" in Georgia? They didn't attack us, but I know they were planning just that. There were many, many (like billions) of them on the lot where we built our house for Habitat for Humanity in Americus, Georgia. The only reason they didn't attack us was that we did what our bed and breakfast owners told us to do: They gave us some uncooked grits and told them to spread that over their ant hills, so we did. What the fire ants supposedly did was eat the grits and ate so much of the grits that they would "blow up" and be unable to bite us... or burn us... whatever they do. We were all fine in spite of the ants, so thank God for grits! 

Chick Susie  Would drowning Karin's hamster in the sump pump count? My husband's encounter with a black bear while roller blading? How about being stung by jellyfish at the beach at Key Biscayne? Or maybe my son chasing a possum from our porch ledge with a hockey stick? Sorry, no wild tales to relate on this one.

Chick Jana  I haven't had much of a wildlife experience, it was usually camping in the backyard and even then I never lasted the whole night. I had to dig back to the archives of my mind to come up with this one. My only real wildlife experience was the one week I went to a Boundary Waters canoe trip with my church. This is an area that borders northern Minnesota and Ontario. No motorized boats were allowed in the water and no planes or helicopters in the air. I was amazed at how peaceful it was and how much wildlife we did see. We would canoe 20 miles every day (even in the pouring rain on the first day of your menstrual cycle). We carried back packs, ate nuts, berries and freeze dried everything and set up and took down a new camp every day. 

Every day we awoke at dawn to our camp counselor singing, "Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory, Glory." I even carried a canoe for a mile! They called it portaging; I called it getting your armpits and the whole underside of your arms eaten by mosquitoes. It's one of those experiences at the time I really didn't enjoy as a spoiled, suburban teenager wanting to get back to my telephone and blow dryer. But now I look back and it was really a lot of fun and a priceless experience. Poor Lainey and Austin, guess where I'm sending them in 12 years? They'll thank me later. Oh yeah, Thanks Mom!

Chick Karin  Me and wildlife? You've stumped me... unless you count dancing until the sun comes up as wildlife.

Chick Kristin  My grandfather's Scottish Terrier, Peggy, bit me in the face when I was a little girl. My cousin Jacquie told me to blow in Peggy's face -- that she liked that -- so I did. Peggy bit into my mouth and chin, but I was a trooper. No stitches; just a big bandage. Needless to say, I soaked up as much attention as I could get.

Chick Julie  My ex-husband was a beast, does that count? I could recount lots of stories about him. Other than that my only animal stories are from my horse riding days. I've had horses throw me off, sit on me and bite me but somehow I still think they're beautiful animals.

Chick Lorene  We were moving into our house in Texas; it was 9PM; the movers were coming at 8AM the next morning; the air conditioner on the house was broke, and it was 110 degrees!! My oldest sat on the step to the yard and dangled his feet over the step... then started screaming! I pulled him in the house, stripped his shorts off, and he had about 25 fire ant bites on each leg! It was so awful. Poor kid -- welcome to your new home! I've only had one fire ant bite and it was enough for me. They blister and burn for days and days.