A Few Quick Notes 451

-Today, even though we are less than two days away from Earl, was beautiful. Actually, I might go so far as to suggest that it was verging on perfection. The temperature was in the mid-twenties with non-blistering sun and a slight breeze. Now that the sun has set the temperatures have dropped slightly, just enough to merit a jacket if one decided to go on a late night stroll.

-I seem to have managed to temper my Empire Avenue activity, which is a skill that is important considering the onset of the new school year. For better or worse, some acquaintances of mine seem not to have yet developed this skill.

-We made a return trip to the Oaklawn Farm Zoo today. We took this trip so that Rebecca's brother could have a chance to visit the zoo for the first time. I think he, like the rest of us, was quite impressed with what he saw. I know that even though we told him about many of the animals that he could expect to see he still under-estimated the breadth of the zoo's holdings.



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The gibbons were particularly active today. Jeannette was able to capture some of this activity in the video posted above.

-On a related note, we finally took the time to ask a staff member about the origin story of the zoo's zonkey (donkey-zebra hybrid).



Apparently, as I suspected, the zonkey has a zebra mother and donkey father. Apparently the zebra was impregnated by the donkey, a pygmy donkey, during the brief period of time during which the two types of animals were housed together. They put the donkey in with the zebras because it was a pygmy, and, they thought, not tall enough to mate with the zebras. As it turns out, even a pygmy donkey is tall enough to mate with a zebra. Un/fortunately, this pairing did not result in a pygmy zonkey.

-My friend Peter returned to Halifax today and moved into an apartment a block away from my apartment. I am looking forward to having another friend in the neighbourood.