Following my post yesterday about the museum in Brazil that burned, I'll post some pictures from my visit to the Rio Zoo which is adjacent to the museum. I've selected some that are inspired by each of the images above: The grizzly bear weighs about 1/2 of what a giant pumpkin weighs: these are flowers that were growing in the zoo: these fun-shaped trash receptacles look sort of like a row of pumpkins: Guys working with plants ... they are feeding the giraffe A bright red thing in the middle of the picture ... well orange anyway. A pathway ... a road curving up a hill just outside the park A bird on a railing ... This looks like a nuthatch's big brother. A laughing rat ... A rodent that you wouldn't laugh about kittens ... a feral cat that was sleeping in the zoo no sand sculptures in the zoo, but after leaving there we stopped back at our hotel on Copacabana Beach which had this view

Mountain lion roaming much too close to our house. Photo taken by Dept. of Fish and Wildlife before tranquilizing and relocating him.

Piggy Sue was stolen and taken to a feral hog buyer. When they tried to weigh her, she got loose and they shot her. She weighed 510 lb. It was almost a month before I found out what had happened to her. I went to the buyer....he said he could tell she had been raised a pet, but he said sometimes people get tired of them and sell them. I was glad she was shot because she was so tame and had never been mistreated, and she must have been so scared. I wouldn't have wanted her to suffer more by being shipped and then slaughtered. I knew who stole her and I tried to press charges but the DA wouldn't take them. He said she was feral. She may have been born feral, but I raised her and had her spayed. She was no longer feral. And the punks who stole her came on my property to do it. About 50 people from here and FB, wrote letters on her behalf...Justice for Piggy Sue, but the DA still refused. I took videos of her and how tame she was....no good. It broke my heart. She was a sweet, gentle pet. One time she got a dog food can hung on her lower jaw. She came to me, and I told her to lay down and I used tin snips to cut it off. She cried but she never moved. She trusted me so much. I can imagine how afraid she was, and it still upsets me. Pig Lee and Pig Newton drowned in the flood. They weren't confined and could have gotten away, I would have thought, but the water came up so fast and was so swift. :'(

Annie...an idea for this thread when the alphabet is done. You post a line from a song, one line each day...the photographer has to interpret. ie: Here are 4 lines from a song I listen to. Once I was seven years old, my mama told me Go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely Once I was seven years old It was a big big world, but we thought we were bigger