Live always at the edge of poetic possibilty, even in the face of severe prose. - Walter Bruggemann


Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Suzane the Elephant

You won't actually see a photo of Suzane the elephant...I don't want you to have a mental image of me weighing, what, a ton? Nor do I want you to think of me with hairy, grey, wrinkled skin. I went to the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem and found my namesake. She was muddy, but lovely. What's fun about this zoo, in addition to being a well planned habitat for all of its animals is that each animal is referenced in the Bible. Everything in Israel is somehow, somewhere connected to the Bible. After the zoo I went to another zoo, a human zoo known as the Jerusalem mall. Eh, hmm, no Biblical reference was evident.

In Israel squirrels are behind glass. There are no squirrels to be found running across the streets or running up trees. Poor Milo. The only true excitement throughout his day, besides curling up on the sofa with me, was to bark his little head off. Good thing I didn't bring him with me, I'd be making a daily trip to the zoo.

Didn't believe me did you.


We saw eye to eye.

Butt ugly.

Cute butt.

And while I'm blogging about animals I want to tell you about the jackals on the moshav. The first night that I was in Israel, the sun began to make its beautiful descent over the hillside. It was dusk and I first heard what sounded like a dog howling. Then, a few more joined in. All of a sudden there were several jackals making all sorts of sounds, cries, yelping, at times it sounded like an out of control fraternity party. They would only make noise for a few minutes at dusk. But these nocturnal critters were just warming up. Sometimes during the night they would begin all over again. At first it was rather scary to hear them but I got used to it and actually looked forward to hearing their call. Web sources say that they mate for life but are secondary predators, meaning they're not quite as bad as lions and tigers and bears. I saw one who was out just before it got dark...he looked at me and I at him; we went our separate ways.

Photo of jackal downloaded from the web.

3 comments:

sabba17 said...

Did you ever go to the Bridgeport Zoo?

Suzanne said...

Yes, Beardsley Zoo is very, very nice too but so much different because of the landscape. At the zoo here I took the train around the zoo and of course, as they were building it, they came across some ancient ruins, so they are protected right in the middle of all the animals.

Also, growing up in St. Louis I made many trips to the St. Louis Zoo which is fabulous.

Unknown said...

Suzie,
We are so in awe of all the beauty you are experiencing. The trees here are not too colorful, yet, Excalibur had a great bath and looks like the zebra with the cute behind! Ex's is fuzzy though. We saw a few deer and turkey of late, no exotic animals. Oh, and Nono calls all squirels, "Jack"...??? Did you know she worked at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago?!!! LOVE your photos. Looks like the camera is working great and the artist is wonderful behing the lense. Take care, love the blog.
HAH