An evening with Sister Beck

Even in this neck of the woods we occasionally get someone from the Relief Society General Presidency. Once every 5 years or something, but they do come. Last night we had a great evening with Sister Beck. She said she wanted it to be our meeting, so she opened it up for questions. Most of the questions could be answered in the same way, prayer, faith and knowing "the plan". She was great. The best quote of the night was this (it might be a little paraphrased, I couldn't write fast enough) "We were not sent here for "the dream," what we were promised was "an experience," to help us grow and develop into the people we need to become to have eternal life." I think that about covers it.

We live Where?

Last night I went to bed early, had to get up early to go to work. You know, that 4am thing:) But! I was woken up by the terrible wind that was blowing outside. It was after 10:30 before I finally got to bed. And this is what I woke up to this morning. This would be our front yard, it was 10 times worse in the back yard, but I forgot to take a picture. This is the neighbor's crab apple tree, or it was anyway. Part of it got blown down, not sure what they are going to do with the rest of it.

And this is another neighbors yard. They actually had 2 trees come down. There were several trees down, just in the 3 miles from the house to work. And power was out everywhere. The school kids got lucky, they had a 2 hour delay, if their school wasn't cancelled. And all this destruction... it came from Hurricane Ike. Yes, we live in the midwest and get hammered by 70mph gusts of wind from a HURRICANE!! jeez, just when you thought you were safe. I guess we can be considered blessed, the last time the remnants of a hurricane went through we just about drowned, this time, no rain. So we were a little bit lucky.

The Wilds, part II

The carnivore enclosure had Cheetahs and African wild dogs. Both of which are endangered. There was a worker there that was talking about what they get fed and how they feed them and interact with them. She said that they will actually go into the Cheetah area in pairs, but will never go into the wild dog area. The dogs are more likely to attack and tear you apart. Nice to know, eh. The dogs are being killed by people, who moving into their habitat, and the dogs are eating the people's goats, (well, duh) while the Cheetahs are being killed by poachers, for their fur, mostly. This is some type of Oryx, which is in the Antelope family. They have about 5 types of antelope here. There is one that is used as a surrogate for other antelope, which helps increase the other populations quicker.
For those of you that saw the carp pictures from Pymatuming lake, here are some catfish. They have the same mentality, since there is fish food and people feed them constantly.
This is the white Rhino. Our tour guide says they aren't white at all, but the Dutch word for wide mouth sounded like white, hence the name.
They have an area that is called the perimeter area where they have animals native to North America only. They have Bison and a few others that they have put in there, and then they have the ever popular white tail deer, who knows where it's safe. They have even had a bobcat move into the park.
This was an awesome trip. We really had a great time, and it was worth the 2&1/2 hour drive. We are thinking we might go again in May so we can see the babies after they are born. At least one of the guides said that was when they have babies to look at. They also have a butterfly area, although we didn't go see it. We went on the air conditioned busses and got dropped off at different areas, then got back on a different bus whenever they were available. For a little more money, you could get on a "safari" bus, with no sides and a canvas over top. No air conditioning, but the bus waited for your group until everyone was done looking at whatever was in the area. Maybe next time we'll have to expand our trip, now that we know all the little details.

Who'd a thunk?!

In the middle of the lovely state of Ohio, there is this really cool place called The Wilds. This is a picture of just some of the land that they have. From the 1940's to 1970's it was all strip mined for coal. After they were done they started reclamation and then donated to The Wilds. It took 10 years after the donation before the park opened in 1996. They have all kinds of rare and endangered animals from all over the world here. They are part of an captive breeding program to increase populations of certain species and release them into the wild. They have tour busses that go around the park and drive right up by the animals.
Here are the Asian Rhino's, ain't the little one cute:)
Giraffes, if you couldn't tell. There are actually 3 kinds here, the reticulated, the Rothschild, and the Messi (Messiah, with out the -ah sound). Amazing. They told us the differences, it has to do with their spot pattern, but I can't remember which is which, although I think these are the reticulated. They told us that they will go up to the fence and not move until they get treats. When they stand in front of the gate, none of the tour busses can get through, so someone has to come out and lure them away from the gate. Smart animals!
This sign was in the carnivore enclosure. Sean and I got a big kick out of it, mainly cause it made it seem like they were more worried about the animals :) The fences are actually pretty high and seem hard to climb. I say seem, cause next thing you know, some knuckle head will try to climb them.

Be fruitful and multiply

While I'd like to be talking about myself, nope, it's just the tomatoes that are outta control. Can't wait until they all ripen. I'm hoping that they ripen in batches, so I have time to do something with them, otherwise they will be rotting, and I will be upset. As you can see, they have escaped their confines, and are growing all over the place. There is actually a green pepper plant in the middle of the mess that has a pepper on it. I have to rethink the arrangement for next year. These are a few of the fruits of my labors. The yellow one is supposed to be that way, but we've only had one so far. Can't wait to see the rest of them. I'm hoping we get enough Roma's that Sean can make some yummy sauce. He made some Italian "salsa" with these. Oh, yeah, it was yummy!! He doesn't know it's all gone and he needs to make some more:)