Giraffes

I have lots of memories of the giraffes.




One of my favorites was looking out over the area where the giraffe could be seen in the background at dusk. It was so serene and peaceful. Most of the time they were still. Occasionally, one would be walking but in no hurry at all. What a wonderful way to end the day.



At the other extreme, was when I was invited to go out on the feed truck. Then, I had to be there at 5:30 a.m. or get left. I got to go out three times.



When we finally got to the giraffes, they were ready to be fed. This was one of the times I got to touch them. Think of very thick velvet and you have a very good idea of what they feel like. It felt so luxurious.



Then, there were the exciting and unexpected times -



One day I was walking through the baby animal nursery and there they were. Twins - rare, but none the less, there they were.



They were named Archie and Edith. Giraffes usually come one at a time.



They were having trouble getting them to take a bottle. Finally, someone came up with the idea of hiding the bottle in her long blonde hair. It worked. No more feeding problems. That was as close to looking like a giraffe as they could get.



Eventually they were moved to an outside pen. I spent many hours with them.



One time, they were both very interested in getting into the bag I had over my shoulder. One actually had it's neck wrapped around my back and coming in to get in the bag. Finally, I remebered I had an apple in there. I don't remember how I got out of the tangle of baby giraffes necks, and still had the apple. LOL



They were eventually moved out with the other giraffes.



Sometimes we would have a chance to feed them over the fence in the afternoon. The keepers would bring carrots and apples out for us to give them. There tongues are so long. It was a joy to be that close to the giraffes again.



I will be sharing pictures of all these situations except the twins in the nursery. At the moment they are prints that were taken with the old fashioned disk cameras. I need to see if I can get them transferred to a disk that will fit in a computer. I am working on it. In the meantime all I can offer is that your imagination takes over and you can picture the different scenes.

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