This week the girls grew spots; well, not actually, but they seem to have. Elephants like Sissy and Delhi have always had lots of spots. When you look at their faces and their trunks they have lots of little spots, the size of a thumb nail, all throughout their pale pink skin, but they’re the only ones we had noticed with spots. That changed the other day when we had a soaking rain before the girls had a chance to coat themselves in mud. When Tarra woke from her nap in the woods and came into the opening of a meadow, she had spots at the base of her trunk. Tarra is darker than most of the girls and hairier, but this afternoon there was some light pink showing through, and spots on top of the light pink. Upon approaching Shirley Grandma from the side, she, too, had spots—a big patch of them over her right eye, sitting on top of her eyebrow ridge. She also had a clump of them on the side of her face..
One dark, chilly night, the sounds of trumpeting and happy squeaks could be heard out in the Diva’s Pond Yard habitat. A caregiver went out back to check on everything, but the flashlight’s beam only showed fog and more fog (a prominent evening presence in the valley where the Divas reside). Upon further listening, a hollow booming noise could be heard. Minnie was just playing with a plastic keg, which is now quite flat. It still makes a satisfactory noise when she kicks it around.
More noise could be heard inside the barn. Debbie was playing one of her favorite fall games: sticking her head repeatedly in and out of the rubber flaps covering the entrance to stall #2. When she did this last year, caregivers feared she was going to bring the whole thing down on her head, but the flaps survived, as they no doubt will this season, too.