An Exotic Field Trip

Meet "Mr. T." He's the new little one we are watching part-time. This was his first field trip with us. We headed south to the D.E.W. Animal Kingdom. This is a unique rustic farm in Maine that has a lot of unique animals as the photos will attest to. The owners and founders help to rescue animals as well as educate the public. This is our second time visiting DEW and, as always, it was both educational, amusing, and fun.

Prior to heading out, I printed out a list of all the animals at the sanctuary. My oldest picked the red kangaroo. They made a nice appearance for us. It was very neat to see them up close and personal.

My middle son picked the Military Macaw but it was too cold so they still weren't out in their regular area yet. I think my youngest chose the Biturong. We got a bit side tracked and looking up a few more than what they had picked.

There was a pair of Timber Wolves who were resting in the shade....

The large cats were just like kittens wanting a rub. They all came running and would come up for a scratch and then sit nearby....

Black Panther

Mountain Lion

Lions

and

Tigers 

and

Bears....oh my!!!

I think the hit of the show were the camels. My youngest was the closest to Bob, one of the owners, and was brought over to water them. 

He stood like this for almost five minutes! The camel never slowed down.

The drool! Oh the drool!!!! It made any dog I had ever seen look like nothing.

Do you see it? ::shudder::

There was a door in the barn wall and this guy came running over to meet everyone. And yes, it's the one with all the drool  hanging out of his mouth! He wanted to greet everyone. 

Even Mr. T! (Unfortunately, I couldn't see or take a photo and this was the best one my kiddos snapped.)

That big purple thing hanging out of the side of his mouth? That's not his tongue. It's part of his esophagus. Camels don't sweat and don't pant. In order to stay cool, they regurgitate part of their esophagus so that it picks up the cool air around them, then they swallow it back down in order to cool off.

Mr. T is checking out the deer.

This is their resident hyena. I had seen this previously and I have to say, if I was ever anywhere there was a hyena loose, I wouldn't stay very long! Mr. Bob shared how he came by this pretty amazing animal. It was actually someone's pet! They had it in a city basement apartment with their two-year-old child! They tossed a deer leg in to it and it decimated the entire thing in about five minutes. I find it unbelievable what people think is okay.

Monkeys! They were so fun to watch. 

It was a fun day and, as always, Mr. Bob is entertaining but can sometimes be a bit over the top. What he lacks in people skills he makes up for in the vast knowledge he has of all his animals. This is a working farm staffed solely by Mr. Bob and his wife. They have volunteers who help as well, but it's their life. They live here. This was one of our more interesting field trips so far this year.

2013 Project

I have always loved photos. However, it wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I became a professed shutterbug. It might have had something to do with the children I began having.

I've also loved family history. Well, don't ask my Aunt that. I vividly remember the time my cousin and I were "kidnapped" by my Aunt (his mom) and my Mom (his aunt) and made to drive around their hometown. At the time I thought it was torture, but now I would drink it up.

This leads up to the project I'm currently working on. One that has been "in the works" so to speak for about ten years.

I'm scanning the family sides and creating digital photos of each one.

Let me back up just a bit.

At least ten years ago, probably more like 12-13, my mom gave me a huge tote full of all the family slides. I had offered to organize them and get them digitized. At the time I had a flat-bed scanner that would do that. I also had a five year, a newborn, and I had just started staying home after working full-time. Oh, and I was also begin our homeschool journey. The project continued to get pushed to the background of my life.

I did successfully organize all of them into binders. I bought plastic slide holders and sorted each and everyone of them. And I counted them. There are over 1000 slides there. However, the binders were regulated back to the tote and began traveling with us.

In one of the moves I lost the power cord for my scanner. I managed to buy a replacement cord off eBay. Then I realized that in all of our moves, my scanner was broken. There was a lock button on the back. I found out it should have been in the 'on' position.

So again, the project was regulated to the back burner.

Than my mom died four years ago and suddenly it became more pressing. Obviously not enough for me to do something about it then but I began looking at other options. I found a very inexpensive slide scanner on Amazon. (The link takes you to one similar to what I'm using, but they no longer carry the exact model. It is not an affiliate link.) I bought it, but still didn't quite find the time to sit down and began.

However, in the last few months my Dad has really wanted to get his slides back so I am making it my top priority at the moment. His birthday is at the end of the month and my younger sister will most likely go visit him. My goal is to have all the slides scanned and boxed up for her to take to him. I'm also hoping to have a DVD of them all for him. He used to love having slide shows - I remember them fondly as a kid - so a DVD will allow him a "modern day slideshow."

While the word can be a bit tedious - I can only scan three at a time - it's been so much fun finding all the gems in there.

My paternal grandfather died before I was born and I've only seen a handful of photos of him. However, in the slides I've been scanning were close to 200 from my Dad's side of the family that I had never seen before (nor my siblings). They were never part of our family slide shows. There are some neat ones like the one below of my grandfather.

As for my older siblings, they are certainly happy as most of their baby photos were taken as slides. I have scanned close to 300 photos of my oldest brother so far! My older sister also has quite a few and then the numbers begin to dwindle dramatically! However, by the time I came along, it was starting to become more common to have actual prints made rather than slides.

And the quality is sometimes not there, but then again, these slides have been sitting in storage for over 30 years between the time they were taken until now. While there is some damage (you can see it at the top of the photo above) and sometimes the colors don't come through accurately (you can see the difference in the two photos below - taken on the same day), the memories behind them are precious and I'm very thankful we have the technology now to save it.

 

In case you are wondering, I'm the little girl in the blue jumper. 

I've scanned 700+ slides so far and have probably 500 or so left to do. I'm glad I'm able to get these done. I'll be moving on to photos when I'm done with the slides. So many family memories.