Victoria Zigler's Blog: Zigler News, page 120

Keeper For The Day - Part 2 (FD)

If you missed it, you can read part 1 here.

After the Meerkats it was time to feed some Penguins.

Some children who were at the park came up to see the Penguins while we were in feeding them, so Julie left me throwing fish for the Penguins while she did the talk for them. Here's a video of me feeding the penguins while Julie does the first part of her penguin talk:




Kelly also took some photos of the Penguins...


...Including a couple of Slasher the 25 year old Rock Hopper Penguin...


It was fun, but I have to admit I was glad to have gloves between me and the fish I was throwing for them. Also, throwing fish to penguins is hard on the back and shoulders... Just saying.

Anyhow, they never did decide they'd had enough fish. But when Julie decided they'd had enough, we headed off to see some other animals.

We said, "Hello," in passing to some of them, including these Sacred Ibis:


This Eagret:


These Lop-Eared Rabbits:


And this Flamingo:
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Then we went to have our "meet and greet" with the Beavers and Capybaras, and to feed them. Well, mostly to feed them, since they decided it was too wet to come out and do the "meet and greet" part.

This Beaver did brave the rain long enough to check out what was on offer for breakfast:


But the Capybaras were not coming out of the sheltered spot they'd found, even for food. Julie tried everything, but they weren't having it. She did offer to try and take me across to them, but since she almost slipped herself trying to get over there, we just thanked her for trying and said it was OK. We did leave them their food though, and Kelly grabbed a couple of photos:


Even the Beavers thought being in their den was better in such wet weather:


So, we left them to sleep in the dry, and headed off for our next animal encounter.

Next was feeding time for the bats. I forget what kind of bat Julie said they were, but here's a photo of some of them:


This Common Marmoset was in with the bats, so we fed him too:


Here's another of the bats:


Also in the same enclosure was this Sloth. Julie did tell me his name, but I don't remember what it was. Anyway, here he is:


None of them came quite close enough for me to touch, but a bat flew so close to me as it passed that I felt the draught from its wings, and being able to say I fed them is cool, anyhow.

After that it was time for our lunch, so we headed to the cafe where I had pizza and chips (fries) and Kelly had lasagne. Let me tell you I was glad for the chance to sit down by this point! I'll tell you next time what I did after lunch.

#Furkid Friday: Is It #Christmas Again? (FD)

Um... Hi everyone. This is Mollie the chinchilla.

Something strange but wonderful happened about a week ago. It was like that Christmas thing was back again.

The Mummy human has a Mummy human of her very own. I didn't know about this, but I suppose all humans do? Anyway, my chinchilla sister, Maizie, and I, have never met her, but our degu brother, Joshua, says he's seen her a few times. So, this Nanny Human, as Joshua calls her, supposedly got some of our stuff from Santa Paws by mistake at Christmas. But it took her ages to get a chance to send them to us. Now she finally has, and the Mummy Human gave them to us about a week ago.

There was this fun hanging toy for me and Maizie...


There was also a box of hay biscuit things, which all three of us have to share. We don't mind though, since their big enough that Maizie and I can easily share one, and there are a few in the box. Not for long if we have our way though, since they're very tasty, and we aren't very good at making nibbles we enjoy last a long time.

Anyway, here's a photo of me and Maizie in our house sharing our first one:


And here's Joshua in his house with his first one:


Like I said, it was like that Christmas thing had come again... It was great!

Squeak soon,
Mollie

#Writing Wednesday - April 5th 2017

I'd hoped to be able to give you a release date for at least my poetry collection by this week, especially with April being National Poetry Month (NaPoMo) or National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) if you prefer. Unfortunately, that's not happening. I've got enough poems written that I could put a new collection together, but I haven't even decided which cover artist will be doing the cover for it, let alone discussed possible cover designs with the cover artist in question.

As for the story I'm writing... Well... I'm still working on it, but I have to admit to having made very little progress recently. With everything I've had going on, most of my writing time in the past couple of months has been a few minutes snatched here and there, so my progress on the story I'm writing is a lot slower than I'd hoped it would be, and much slower than is normal for me with writing projects. There is some progress though. I mean, I have a rough idea of where it's heading, and an even rougher idea of how it will get there, which is great for someone like me who never does outlines. It's just going to take me longer than I'd hoped to get it written. Then I'll need to sort out a cover for it, as well as doing all those other things required to get a book ready for publication... It's going to take quite a while yet, basically.

This year is going to be a very slow one for new releases, apparently!

Good thing I have plenty of other books for people to read in the meantime...

***

Are you a writer too? If so, is it short stories you write? If you answered yes to both of those, you may like to check out these tips for ending a short story.

Regardless of what you write, however, remember to reread, reread, and reread again.

Also, here are some considerations for if you want to be a professional writer. NOTE: that last post contains a small amount of strong language.

Last, but certainly not least, remember writers, it's Okay to log out.

Keeper For The Day - Part 1 (LBE And FD)

As you'll know if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook, my trip to Drucillas Park on March 22nd 2017 was awesome! Not only was the "keeper for the day" experience itself amazing, but the keeper we had was wonderful (both in general, and with me as a blind person). I'm very grateful to have such a fantastic friend who arranged this for me, and also very grateful to the people - and animals - at Drucillas Park for making my day so awesome. So... Thank you, Karl, Julie, and the rest of the gang at Drucillas... People and animals alike!

Anyway, we took loads of photos, as well as a couple of short videos, and the post would get WAY too long if I put them all in one post. So I'm seporating it in to several posts, which will be published over the next couple of weeks on Sundays and Mondays. There are four posts in all, of which this is the first.

It was pouring with rain that day, but it didn't dampen my enjoyment one bit. Hey, I'm from Wales, and used to just getting on with things despite the rain. My only concern with the rain was how our camera would manage taking the photos with how much it was raining. I'm told it did a good job of compensating for all the rain though, so that's a relief. OK, time to get on with telling you about the day.

We caught an early train, making sure to allow for delays, to be sure we weren't late. Naturally, since we'd allowed for delays, there weren't any. So we were there over an hour early, and they sat us in the cafe with a cup of coffee for Kelly, and a cup of tea for me, to wait until it was time for my keeper to come meet up with us.

Kelly passed the time checking out the stuff he could see from where we were sat in the cafe. Like this real estate sign:


These pictures of wolves:


And this dynamite:


(I'm not sure what it was made of... Kelly wouldn't go over and prod it for me to find out, and wouldn't take me over either).

Then our keeper, Julie, came to fetch us, and took us back to the staff room to give us the pre-keeper experience talk, and on the way there we couldn't resist stopping to say, "Hi," to these Goeldi Monkeys:


When we finally made it to the staff room, Julie gave me my very own name badge and shirt with the zoo's logo on. Here's me with Julie, all ready to start the day:


After that we headed to the store rooms to check out the dry food some of the animals eat, before heading to the kitchens to prepare some fresh vegetables for some of the animals. We didn't take photos of me sorting the vegetables. Part of this is because even Kelly got involved with this to speed things along, and part of it is that we didn't feel it was anything worth taking photos of. If anyone feels they missed out by not seeing a photo or two of me chopping vegetables, I can always get Kelly to take one of me in our own kitchen... It won't be all that different, to be honest. It was cool knowing I'd be feeding the animals food I lovingly prepared myself though.

With the food prepared and in a bucket, we headed off to see some animals.

First we stopped to say, "Hi," to their donkeys. I don't remember the name for the kind of donkey they were, but they're the small ones that are around the same kind of size as Shetland Ponies (as you'll see from the photos in a moment).

There were two donkeys, Cocoa and Drucilla. I bent down to pet Cocoa, and Drucilla the donkey tried to hug me, since she felt she wasn't getting enough attention. I have to say, having a donkey try to hug me is an entirely new experience. I've petted donkeys before, even ridden on some of the bigger ones when they still did donkey rides on the beaches, but never have I had a donkey walk up to me while I was petting another and attempt to hug me by putting her head across my shoulder. Naturally, I hugged her back, because who wouldn't? Here's a photo of me bent down hugging Drucilla the donkey:


When I got up to leave their house, Drucilla tried to beat me to the door to stop me leaving...


But there were other things to see and do, so I had to leave the cuddly donkey behind.

After the donkeys I cleaned out the Meerkat nesting box. I figured you wouldn't want photos of me scooping dirty sawdust and stuff from a wooden box, so we didn't get any photos of that. However, when we went in to feed and have our "meet and greet" with the meerkats, we hat to get some photos.

I can't remember the names of all the Meerkats, though Julie did tell me what they were, and I certainly can't remember which identifying mark belonged to which, so I can't name them as I share their photos. Here they are anyway...

Here's a Meerkat on a rock in their enclosure:


Here's a Meerkat on a stump in their enclosure:


Here's a gang of Meerkats:


And here's one of the Meerkats exiting their burrow:


Because it was such a wet day, Julie put a black bag down on a large rock in their enclosure for me to sit on. Naturally, one of the Meerkats immediately tried to steal it...


...And, no. Me sitting on it did not stop the attempts to steal the bag. Haha!

Once I was sitting on the rock, the Meerkats immediately came to check me out. I'd been a bit worried about them potentially being afraid of my white cane (which was no longer white by the end of the day, as I'm sure you can imagine). But apparently it was a fun toy to investigate, swing off, and jump on and off of. Anyway, here are some photos of the Meerkats checking me out and climbing on me:


Also, here's a short video of me being climbed over by the gang of Meerkats:




I got to feed them, and petted them a little while they were jumping on and off of me. It was great fun! I could have sat there all day, but there was more to see and do, of course.

You'll have to find out next time what we did after the Meerkats though.

Tori's March 2017 #Book #Reviews (LBE)

It's time to take a look at what I read in March.

As with the previous posts like this one, if you want to know more about the book, or the author, click on whichever it is you want to learn more about, and it will take you to the appropriate page on Goodreads. Clicking on my rating should take you to my actual Goodreads review for the book in question.

Don't forget: the format I've reviewed may not be the format I read. Also, please remember that I read across multiple genres and age ranges, so you should always check if a book is suitable for the intended reader, especially when children are involved. Sometimes reading the book's description on its Goodreads page will be enough for this, but other times you may need to check elsewhere to figure out the genre and/or recommended reading level.

OK... On to the reviews!

The Rogue Hunter by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was a pretty good read, but not as good as the others in the series so far; the ending was a bit anti-climactic, and didn't feel as satisfying as the endings of the other books in the series have been.

Fatemarked by David Estes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was totally awesome! The worldbuilding was amazing, the characters are all quite interesting and believable, the plot contains the perfect balance of action and quieter scenes where you can catch your breath while learning more about the characters and their world, and the descriptions are fantastic (in fact, those with weak stomaches may find them a little too good, since there are wonderfully described scenes of violence and blood in this story, as well as the more pleasant images the author paints for us during the tale). On top of that, while the ending is clearly left open for the continuation of the series, things are also wrapped up well enough to avoid an actual cliffhanger ending, which meant that - though I was a little disappointed to find the book was over - I felt satisfied with the way the story ended. I highly recommend this book, and can't wait for the next book in the series to be available!
*NOTE: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This fact has in no way influenced either my opinion of the book, or the contents of my review.

RENOVO Symbiosis by Geoffrey Wakeling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is another excellent and exciting addition to this series, which has a fantastic plot that will keep you guessing, as well as often having you on the edge of your seat, and an awesome cast of characters (and I'm not just saying the latter because one of them is named after me... It's all true).

The Immortal Hunter by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A great addition to the series, and a pretty good read overall.

The Renegade Hunter by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an exciting addition to the series, which will have your emotions up and down like a rollercoaster.

Pest by James Field
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've enjoyed all the stories in this series so far, and this one was no exception. It has a great cast of characters, and the plot is both interesting and full of surprises.

Born to Bite by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book. It's a great addition to the series: paranormal romance with a bit of mystery thrown in.

Hungry for You by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an excellent addition to this series, with an entertaining plot, as well as a great cast of characters.

The Reluctant Vampire by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
During the first third of the book, I wasn't enjoying it as much as I usually enjoy the books in this series, because nothing much seemed to be happening. It got better though. Things started to happen after that, and the rest of the book was exciting and enjoyable.

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A fascinating and enjoyable quick read. I look forward to reading more of the series.

The Poet Speaks: Kevin Morris Reads a Sellection of His Poetry by K. Morris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've read a lot of Kevin Morris' poems, and enjoyed them; Kevin's poems are often extremely thought-provoking. Hearing him read some of his poems out loud helps to bring them to life in a way reading them myself can't do. In short, this is a great collection of poetry, which the author reads beautifully, and which is an absolute pleasure to listen to.

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A fascinating and enjoyable addition to the series.

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A fascinating and enjoyable read for all ages.

On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've enjoyed all the books in this series so far, and this one was no exception. It was a fascinating and enjoyable read, just like the previous books in the series.

By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another fascinating and enjoyable addition to the series.

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I think this is my favourite of the series so far. The book itself is an enjoyable read, and reading about how people coped through the long Winter was fascinating.

#Furkid Friday: The Mysterious Disappearance Of Our Humans (FD)

Hi humans, rodent types, and anyone else reading this. This is Joshua the degu.

My chinchilla sisters and I were not impressed with the human caretakers last week.

Why?

Because they went away from just as the sun was rising until just as it was setting, and when they came home they smelled of all sorts of strange animals, most of which we've never even smelled from a distance before, and all of which we didn't recognize the scents of.

When they first got up before the sun, and we got an early breakfast, we thought it was great. Then they said they were going out and would see us later. We figured they were either going for breakfast themselves (they do that sometimes, since apparently eating at home isn't good enough for them some days) or going to that place they call town, where the petstore place is. So we figured they'd be back within a couple of hours at most, maybe even with nibbles for us... The chinchilla cookie package is getting low, after all, so it was possible they were going to get us a refill.

Nope!

They were gone for ages and ages! Then, as I said, when they finally did come home, they smelled of all kinds of strange animals.

If that wasn't bad enough, they literally stuck around long enough to feed us and give us a quick pet, then told us they were really tired so going to bed. Followed by them sleeping late next morning.

So, they disappear all day, come back smelling of strange animals, and then think it's acceptable to just feed us and go to bed, only to then give us a late breakfast the next morning.

Oh, and, in case you're wondering... No. They didn't get us a refill on chinchilla cookies.

What kind of service is this?

I think we need to work on their training again...

Also... I have to wonder... Where did they go? And what were all those interesting animals they smelled of?

Squeak soon,
Joshua

#Writing Wednesday - March 29th 2017

If you're a writer, regardless of what genre it is you write for, you may like to check out these tips on fashion in fiction, so you can decide how much to reveal about what your characters are wearing, and learn how to have their clothing help tell us about the character and the world they live in.

Speaking of the world your characters live in, here's a post on worldbuilding, which will help you to create a framework to hang your story on.

However, if you're a self-published author, and your thoughts are now on your book's cover, here's a post on how to get a great cover design for your book, complete with tips on how to decide if it's right for the book in question.

On the other hand, self-published or not, if you're an author whose thoughts are on blog posts right now, you may be interested in this post about what an author should blog about, which also contains some tips on what you should avoid in your blog posts. Of course, it's up to you what you blog about, but I figured I'd share the post anyhow, just in case someone needs some advice in that area.

Finally, remember: live a lot, write a lot.

March 2017 #TV Talk And #Movie Mutterings

It's time to take a look at this month's new to me movies.

As with the previous posts like this one, just click on the titles to go to a page where you can find out more details about the movie in question; the title links will usually take you to a page on IMDB.

OK...

The BFG (2016 movie):
I've read the book for this one several times, and also seen the 1989 version of the movie, and actually enjoyed both the book and the older movie more than this newer one. It's not that I didn't enjoy the newer movie... I did... But the old movie was better. Still, this was a pretty good movie. I hesitate to give it the full five stars, since it didn't quite feel like a five star movie to me, so I'm giving it four out of five stars.

The Secret Life Of Pets (2016 movie):
This one wasn't what I was expecting. It was a pretty good movie, with some entertaining scenes, and some sweet scenes. But there were also some scenes that were ridiculous for a movie that's supposed to be about ordinary pets and what they get up to when their owners aren't around. I mean, some of the things the animals could supposedly do... Um, no! I fully accept that animals - even your average pet - can do some wonderful things, but some of the things they supposedly could do were just ridiculously impossible. Anyway, I'm torn on the rating. I don't think it's quite a three star movie, and if I gave half stars I'd give it three and a half, but I don't do half stars, and always round up, so for that reason only, I give this movie four out of five stars.

That's all I watched this month that was new to me. Unless you count a couple of episodes of NCIS I don't remember seeing before, which I watched while working my way through the first couple of seasons of NCIS on DVD over the past couple of weekends (much to Mollie and Maizie's delight). I'd have gotten further than a couple of seasons, but I've been splitting my weekends between catching up on watching my DVDs, and catching up on some reading, since my weekdays have been so busy lately, so I'm behind on both things right now. I have up to season ten of NCIS on DVD, plus seasons one to nine of The Big Bang Theory. So I have plenty to keep me busy over the next couple of months. I dare say I'll take breaks from those from time to time to watch some movies though.

2017 1st Quarter #Reading Challenge: Tackle Your TBR

One of the groups I'm a member of over on Goodreads had a challenge for the first quarter of the year that was designed to encourage us to focus at least some of our reading on those books that have been in our "to-read" piles for some time. Since this is one of my own personal reading goals for the year, I decided signing up for this challenge would be a great way to get myself started on the right track with doing this.

The only rule was that the book had to be one you'd had on your to-read list for at least three months at the start of the challenge. You could even pick your own challenge level.

The challenge levels were as follows:

1-3 books Sparkling Snowflake
4-6 books Shiny Icicle
7-9 books Snappy Snowman
10-12 books Blustery Blizzard
13+ books Stately Snow Mountain

I was aiming for Stately Snow Mountain, and successfully tackled that mountain!

There are officially a few days left for this challenge, but since I already made it to the highest challenge level... In fact, I almost doubled the required number to reach the highest level... I figured I might as well go ahead and post this now. So, here are the books I read for this challenge:

1. Love Bites (Argeneau, #2) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on January 10th 2017.
2. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne ~ marked as to read on January 9th 2013; read on January 16th 2017.
3. Single White Vampire (Argeneau, #3) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on January 20th 2017.
4. Tall, Dark & Hungry (Argeneau, #4) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on January 22nd 2017.
5. Sunbolt (The Sunbolt Chronicles, #1) by Intisar Khanani ~ marked as to read on November 7th 2013; read on January 23rd 2017.
6. Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles, #2) by Intisar Khanani ~ marked as to read on November 7th 2013; read on January 28th 2017.
7. A Bite to Remember (Argeneau, #5) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on January 29th 2017.
8. Bite Me If You Can (Argeneau, #6) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on February 4th 2017.
9. Vampires are Forever (Argeneau, #8) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30 2012; read on February 11th 2017.
10. Vampire, Interrupted (Argeneau, #9) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30 2012; read on February 15th 2017.
11. The Savage Stone Age (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary ~ marked as to read on April 27th 2013; read on February 16th 2017.
12. The Measly Middle Ages (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary ~ marked as to read on April 27th 2013; read on February 16th 2017.
13. The Awesome Egyptians (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary ~ marked as to read on April 27th 2013; read on February 17th 2017.
14. The Cut-Throat Celts (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary ~ marked as to read on April 27th 2013; read on February 17th 2017.
15. The Groovy Greeks (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary ~ marked as to read on April 27th 2013; read on February 18th 2017.
16. The Angry Aztecs (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary ~ marked as to read on April 27th 2013; read on February 18th 2017.
17. The Rogue Hunter (Argeneau, #10) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on March 3rd 2017.
18. The Immortal Hunter (Argeneau, #11) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on March 10th 2017.
19. The Renegade Hunter (Argeneau, #12) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on March 12th 2017.
20. Born To Bite (Argeneau, #13) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on March 15th 2017.
21. Hungry For You (Argeneau, #14) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on March 17th 2017.
22. The Reluctant Vampire (Argeneau, #15) by Lynsay Sands ~ marked as to read on December 30th 2012; read on March 19th 2017.
23. Little House in the Big Woods (Little House, #1) by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ marked as to read on March 26th 2015; read on March 20th 2017.
24. Farmer Boy (Little House, #2) by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ marked as to read on March 26th 2015; read on March 24th 2017.
25. Little House On The Prairie (Little House, #3) by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ marked as to read on March 26th 2015; read on March 25th 2017.

#Furkid Friday: #Chinchilla #Videos

Hi everyone. This is Maizie the chinchilla.

The human caretakers got a new toy, and decided to use us as guinea pigs to try it out. We did try to explain to them that we're chinchillas and not guinea pigs, but apparently they either weren't listening or didn't care, since they carried on doing whatever it was they were doing, and the result was a couple of new photos of us - which Mollie already showed you - as well as this short video clip of me and Mollie in our playpen:




Followed a few days later by this longer one:




There's not much to hear in either video, but you get to see us enjoying our pen time, and I hope you enjoyed them anyway.

Squeak soon,
Maizie