We had a beautiful day for our visit. It's located just west of Minocqua, WI, in case you are in the neighborhood. Yes, I'd recommend it.
We first looked at the trout and musky ponds. They had coin-operated dispensers all over, where you can get feed. We threw some fish food to the trout and watched them churn up the water. I got a few pictures, but they don't show the fish that well. And, frankly, I've got too many pictures the way it is. This is a long post. But lots of photos, so it'll go fast. (Unless you're on dial-up!)
This was critter heaven. They have critters from all over, not just the north woods. We had been there over 20 years earlier, and it has expanded a lot. Quite a show.
Where do we start? Well, they had mountain lions ...
... and tigers ...
... and bears. Oh my!
The bear is drinking a bear soda. A vending machine nearby was selling them at $1 a bottle, and my son thought it would be a good investment. I got a nice photo out of it, and the bear sure liked it.
They also had a real burrowing owl. Never had seen one before.
| Anyway at 10:30 the other night I go out into my yard and there's the Werzner kid looking up in the tree. I said, "What are you looking for?" He said, "I'm looking for my burrow owl." I said, "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! Everybody knows that a burrow owl lives in a hole in the ground! Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?!" Now Stuart, do you think a kid like that is gonna know what the queers are doing to the soil? |
(Sorry. The burrow owl brought back memories of a great Dead Milkmen song/rant.)
I like owls anyway. They had some great-horned owls in another cage, way in the back in the shade. I give a hoot, so I got my camera on manual focus mode and finally got a shot of them looking at me ...
Can you see the second owl?
I practically lurgled when I saw the llamas ...
And I was all excited when I saw the lynx ...
Unfortunately, he wasn't.
They had some snakes and reptiles in one building--as big as constrictors and pythons. Don't worry, I didn't include any in this post.
On the other side, there was a sloth in a basket. I wanted him to stick his head up, and he was moving. So I waited. And waited. And waited. But he never showed more than a paw--how slothful!--so the photo mainly shows an old man with a camera running out of patience.
Those damn cages. I have a little autofocus digital camera, and I do as well with it as I can. But when I try to get a good focus through the wires, I mainly get a good, sharp picture of the wires, while the critter in the background is all soft and fuzzy. And not in that sense.
Fortunately, the cages around the tortoises were only about two feet tall, and some were wandering around at large. Isn't this one pretty?
They had deer running around all over the place. Big ones and little tiny ones. Here are a bunch of them lying in a grassy area--including some albinos.
They had a colony of prairie dogs nearby, and this one was particularly acrobatic. Nice balancing act.
Oh, my, did they have the birds there! Wow! This was my first-ever close-up look at colorful wood ducks.
They had peacocks and other exotic birds. Here's a close-up of a peacock's tail feathers.
I don't know what kind of bird this is, but it mesmerized me with its irridescent feathers of many different colors.
Well, there was a little "wild life" in the wildlife park. In the otter pools. These two were chasing around and rolling around with each other, in and out of water, while we were there. Maybe it was just play. Maybe it was Nature at work, making sure that there will be little otters in the future. You be the judge.
There was so many more critters, and I had a tough time deciding which photos to include here. I wanted a good one of the bison, but they wouldn't come away from the shade of their shelter. The cage wires frustrated my efforts at the timber wolf cages.
Goats were all over the place. Near the end of our stay, we sat down, and the goats were there. I had my camera out and got a picture of a goat licking my camera bag, and then another sizing up the buttons of my wife's blouse. In fact, I was trying to send a psychic message to the goat to go ahead and bite off the button. Now that would have been funny! Maybe next time I'll have to dab a little peanut butter on it. Signs nearby warned "Goats eat everything!"
They were chasing David around, too, trying to get the goodies he had. Maybe I'll have to write a supplemental "goat" blog entry. But that's enough for now.
***
Whew! I'm tired. I still have the rodeo pictures to come, but that will be in a few days. I got some good ones there, too.
Temperatures here are near normal again and forecast to stay that way for a while. Storm systems moved through the Midwest again--and again missed us.
That is the big weather story around here. We have a bad drought taking place here in the Upper Midwest, and it's getting worse. I'm getting worried about wildfires and forest fires if we don't get some rain here soon. We have lots of forests around here, you know.
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