Mothers Day (for Giraffes and Garden Bloggers Bloom Day) April 2017 #AtoZChallenge

A day to remember, as April the Giraffe is giving birth even as I publish this post!

On the 15th of each month, gardeners from all over the world gather at an Indiana blog, May Dream Gardens, to participate in a meme called Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Spring has come to my zone 5b garden near Binghamton, New York.

It has come with bloodroot.

It has come with my earliest daffodils.

Pansies smile in a basket I made up.

The vinca appeared yesterday.

My Lenten Rose is upright and blooming.

Indoors, my African Violet that has been blooming the last two Bloom Days is on its way out, but another one opened its first flower yesterday.

One of my two orchids in bloom.  This was a Valentine's Day gift.

And the other, which needs to be repotted so its blooms are sparse.  This was a Mothers Day 2015 gift.

April 9

Alas, the crocuses are gone, but I couldn't resist showing you a clump from earlier this week.

By tomorrow, my hyacinths should be in bloom.  You can never have too many flowers.

Remember to visit Carol at May Dream Gardens after you leave my blog, and check out flowers from all over the world.

And now - push, April, push!

Traveling through time and space on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Lakes #AtoZChallenge #SkywatchFriday

Growing up in New York City, I wanted to go to the Finger Lakes one day.

I never dreamed that I would live, one day, an hour or so from the Finger Lakes.  What a beautiful area it is, and the skies and water will captivate you.

From a sunset on Canandaigua Lake, in Canandaigua...

...to boats on Cayuga Lake, in Ithaca, in early May...

to Seneca Lake, and  parasailing in Geneva in early fall....

To another sunset, in Skaneateles, on Skaneateles Lake.

Linking to Skywatch Friday, where bloggers from all over the world show their pictures of the sky.

I have so many memories of the Finger Lakes, as I journey through time and space.

Two bonuses for you:

This promotional piece shows you a lot of the beauty of the Finger Lakes area. Feel free to only view the first minute or so.

And bonus #2: Cornell Alma Mater song, played on chimes.

Kings (County) and Dog Day Afternoon- #AtoZChallenge

Kings County, New York - a place that most people know as Brooklyn - was where my father was born, and grew up.  In fact, a lot of people living in the United States can trace their origins back to Brooklyn.

When people think of New York City, they think giant skyscrapers, world class museums, and huge crowds.  But there is a lot more to New York City than midtown Manhattan.  Today, I want to show you some of that other world.

I never lived in Kings County - all right, let's call it Brooklyn - but I still have family there.  My best friend growing up lived in Brooklyn for over 40 years before her untimely death from cancer, and another high school friend still lives in Brooklyn.

Kingsborough Community College Campus, May of 2013 (several months after Superstorm Sandy). Yes, this is New York City.

Kings Highway, in Brooklyn - neighborhood pride.

Another Kings Highway picture.

Not only trees grow in Brooklyn, but a lot of flower gardening goes on there.  This nursery is in the Red Hook neighborhood.

But I did promise you a story about "Dog Day Afternoon". This vacant building in the Kings County neighborhood of Gravesend (Avenue P and East 3rd Street) was the Chase Manhattan Bank that was robbed on August 22, 1972, leading to the hostage drama recounted in the movie "Dog Day Afternoon".  The story is fascinating - reality writes much better stories than any of us can.

I was still living in the Bronx at the time - this was indeed a memory of my young adulthood.

A blast from the past - the news coverage of that day.

And, in the spring of 2013, spring flowers bloomed on a beautiful May day.

Do you want to see more of the Brooklyn tourists rarely get to see?  Try these posts:
Brooklyn months after Superstorm Sandy
A Bloom Grows in Brooklyn
A Rose Blooms in Brooklyn 

"K" Day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Journey - Columbia and the Eclipse #atozchallenge

It has been almost forty years since I saw a total eclipse of the sun.

I've been fortunate enough to have seen two total solar eclipses in my life.  It's hard to explain, but seeing a total eclipse will change your life.  For many, it is a spiritual experience, which you can't fully understand until you see how animals behave as totality approaches, feel the cold wind that sweeps across, and feel the awe you will remember for the rest of your life.

This August, many in the United States will have that chance to have their lives changed, as an eclipse sweeps through the continental United States.

My spouse and I will view the eclipse in Columbia, South Carolina - finally, another  total eclipse of the sun.

A couple of years ago, we spent a few days in Columbia, which is the capital of South Carolina.  We weren't supposed to, but an infection caused us to change our plans, and there we were.

I'm a firm believer that, when life has other plans, you will end up, one day, benefiting from it.  So, when we visit in August, we know something of what we will see, besides the eclipse. (At least, we hope we will see the eclipse - nothing is ever guaranteed with the weather).  So, in keeping with my theme, I traveled through my phone and found these pictures.

There is the downtown, with some of its beautiful architecture.  This building, the Kress building, was built in 1934, in the Art Deco style.

Columbia Mills, now the South Carolina State Museum.  This museum was well worth the visit.  We hope to return again for the eclipse and possibly meet one of the few remaining astronauts who walked on the moon back in the 1970's.

Battle of Cowpens (our Revolutionary War) in the South Carolina capital building.

The Hampton-Preston mansion, which has been many things since it was built in 1818 including Union Headquarters during its occupation in the Civil War.  We didn't have a chance to tour it two years ago, but may this time.

Columbia, here I come.

Do you live in the path of totality?  Or, have you ever witnessed a total eclipse of the sun? How far would you journey to see one?

Thank you for reading me and welcome, again, to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Traveling Through Time and Space.

Iowa #atozchallenge

When the plane my father and I were traveling in from New York City to Des Moines, Iowa touched down, my life was about to change.

My uncle, my father's youngest brother, was there to greet us, and to drive us to where he lived in a small town called Fairfield.  When I visited Fairfield, Iowa that first time in 1968, I never imagined the future of this small town of around 9,400. in southeast Iowa.  Nor did I realize the connection I would have with Iowa for the next few years.

I wish I had pictures, but I haven't been there since 2003, and may not return for a long time.  But, allow me to visit by traveling through time and space....

My uncle was a college professor, my aunt a stay at home Mom.

My relatives lived on an elm tree-lined main street - except it was in the process of losing these trees, as they were dying of Dutch Elm disease.  But, the experience of hearing trees being chopped down daily didn't ruin what else I was experiencing.  I was plunged from an urban world of just me and my father to a boisterous family of five (my cousins were ten, eight and four when I arrived) plus a male exchange student staying with them. 

I loved that small town.  I loved walking on the tree lined streets and visiting the Carnegie library up the street.

I saw a picture online, and was amazed - I believe my young cousins took piano lessons in this house.

When I visited next, in 1976, the college my uncle taught at  had closed, and then had reopened under new management (more on that in a minute).  I lived in Fairfield with my family for two months, while my spouse underwent military basic training. I remember walking almost daily to the library, still in the Carnegie building, and nighttime trips with my cousins, by now all teenagers, to the local ice cream stand.

My uncle was working out of town by then.  The marriage to my aunt did not survive.  Eventually, both moved away from Fairfield - my uncle to Illinois, my aunt to Iowa City, where her job moved her.

Still, many happy memories remain of the days I spent with them in Fairfield.  Days, in a way, of carefree youth.  And heartbreak, as I came to realize that my cousins, once grown, barely remembered me and the days I spent with them. Those days still seem fresh in my memory.  Another life lesson learned.

I've been on this town square many times, the most recently in 1995, when I took my then young son for a visit.

And now about the college.

The college (well, the buildings) my uncle had taught in was purchased by followers of the late spiritual leader Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and became Maharishi University.  Townspeople were split between the traditional residents and the meditating students and faculty of the University.   The townspeople didn't quite know what to think of these students, especially after they built a dome where levitation was said to regularly take place.

I ate, with aunt and cousins, in one of their food halls several times; I still remember how good the fresh butter tasted.  Real food!

In writing this post, I found (searching online) the University (now the Maharishi University of Management), is still alive and well. And the people the townspeople once called "meditators" have changed Fairfield forever.

Near Fairfield is Maharishi Vedic City.  Fairfield, now, is a way different place than what I remember in 1968. 

International food.  An art colony. Meditation.  The place to be in Iowa if you are interested in starting up a business.  Forbes Magazine has even written about Fairfield several times.

Never underestimate Iowa.

And, although I haven't been back since 2003, I have been feeling Iowa calling.  Perhaps one day...

"I" day for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Hair - Music Monday #atozchallenge

Today, traveling through time and space, I return to the 1960's, a time of great social upheaval - just like today. 

A blogger in suburban New York City reminded me of a song that seems just perfect for today.

This is a cover of a song that was written for the Broadway show "Hair" sung by the group Three Dog Night.

This is taken from the 1979 movie based on the Broadway show.

The Broadway Show, and later movie, explored the final night of a young man from Oklahoma, a farmhand who was on his way to enlist in the Vietnam War.  He meets up with a tribe of hippies in New York City and it's love at first sight between him and a female tribe member.  There's just one problem: he's on his way to combat. So....

We live in a time when every day brings news from our government here in the United States. Some cheer.  Others become more and more fearful.

When Hair was written, in the 1960's, we were in another era where it seemed things were getting worse daily.

At work recently, a co worker came to visit another co worker.  I was just leaving for lunch, but was in the area long enough to hear co worker #1 upset because someone had just unfriended her on Facebook over a news item she had posted.  The former friend had taken it "the wrong way".

We can be so cruel to each other on social media.  Even a harmless pregnant giraffe living in upstate New York brought out the snark in some because she wasn't giving birth when expected.  Seriously?

We are all on edge.   We are increasingly polarized. 

Yes, too much like my memories of the late 1960's.

Today is "H" Day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Sunday Crocus Walk

Taking the day off from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge  Here are some highlights of a walk through Binghamton,New York today.

But first, I wanted to show you some of my crocuses, from this afternoon. 

And now, on to other flowers:

Right now we are at the height of crocus season, one of the first flowers that blooms in the spring.

On the West Side of Binghamton:

Yellow

White and purple

But it isn't just crocuses.  Check these blue squill out.

I've come to think that the main purpose of winter is to make us so grateful, and so happy, when spring comes with its warm breezes and blue skies.

At last.

Giraffes and Gene Gene (The Dancing Machine) #atozchallenge

As I write this the evening of April 7, April the Giraffe, beloved by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, still hasn't given birth to her calf.

Tomorrow, Animal Adventure Park, which is about 1/2 hour from here, is having an event at our local shopping mall (no April, obviously).  It's an Easter oriented event which was scheduled before the webcam broadcasting April and her mate Oliver went viral, and I'm wondering if I should even go.  I wonder how mobbed it will be.

For now, perhaps I'll just content myself with this giraffe purse I purchased today, made by a local woman.
Such a perfect memory, as I travel through time and space for "G" day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  Besides our local Giraffe, here's another thing to Get you Going.

Do you remember the original Gong Show, a show of the 1970's?

If you don't, I have no idea how to explain it to you.  Its creator, Chuck Barris, died last month.  Chuck Barris, in his own way, was a genius creator of many game shows, featuring newlyweds, people dating, and...well, you get the picture.

The Gong Show was one of the very first reality shows.  It was supposedly a "talent" competition, but not too many of the contestants had talent.  Three celebrity judges would watch the contestant perform and, if the contestant was too terrible even for the standards of the show, the judge would strike a gong.

It was so bad, it was good.

So, where does Gene come in?

A man by the name of Gene Patton was a stagehand at NBC Studios at Burbank, California.  One day, Chuck Barris saw him dancing, if you could call his movements true dancing.  Gene wasn't a dancer, but Chuck Barris saw something in him.   He started bringing Gene, renamed "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine" out during really horrible acts, or "just because".  The appearances were made to appear spontaneous, but they were actually scripted.

Gene would shuffle to the tune of a Count Basie song, "Jumpin' at the Woodside".

Everyone loved it.

Gene (or Gene Gene) died in 2015, a month short of his 83rd birthday.   But I'll always remember him for the funniest "dancing" act of my young adulthood.  But, one more thing:

Ironically, he lost both legs in 2001 due to diabetes.

Again, you just can't make this stuff up. Tomorrow, A to Z takes its Sunday break, while I blog about (if it returns) spring.

Flowers #AtoZchallenge #SkywatchFriday

I never imagined I would be able to take pictures of the sky and post them on something called the "Internet", where people all over the world could view them?

April 2 Binghamton, New York

April is a time of new beginnings.  Soon, this tree, stark against a blue sky with clouds, will be budding out in its own form of flowers.  But today - rain and cold.   We are under a flood watch.

Besides #SkywatchFriday, which I encourage my blog readers to visit and see skies from all over the world, I am participating today in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. 

Today, our posts begin with the letter F.  My theme is "Traveling Through Time and Space."

As a young girl growing up in a small apartment in a housing project in the Bronx in the 50's and 60's, I wanted so much to be able to grow my own flowers.  I loved plants.  My Mom grew geraniums in a west window, and I wanted to be just like her.

One day, I saw a package of dwarf marigold seeds for sale in the local supermarket.  I asked my Mom to buy it for me, and she did.

I planted the seeds in a flower box she bought for me, with some potting soil, again from the store.  I had read about growing flowers from the World Book Encyclopedia my parents had sacrificed to purchase me - in those days, no Internet to conduct research on.

I'd love to say the plants germinated, grew, and flowered.  And indeed, in several days, they did germinate.  I watched, fascinated, as what looked like little loops came up.  The tiny baby plants straightened up, and then put out their first leaves.  They liked the window they were in.

They grew. Before my delighted eyes, the first blower buds appeared.  And then....

One day, I came home from school, to find the plants covered in what looked like spider webs.  Soon, it was apparent they were infested by some tiny insect.  I researched, and it was spider mites.

My Mom bought me some bug spray, but it didn't work.  I tried washing the plants daily.  It only worked temporarily.

I did get a few blooms, but, eventually, the plants died. (I know now that it is really hard to fight spider mites).

But the fire in me to grow flowers didn't die.  It stayed dormant, until, as a grownup, I finally had a plot of land to grow a flower garden on.  The rest, they say, is history.


Now, living in a small city in upstate New York, I want to share pictures of some flowers I took on Sunday.

Iris reticulata (I think).  Feel free to correct me.

White and purple striped crocus.

Snowdrops.

And, my very own crocus.

"F" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge as my memories allow me to travel through time and space.

Endicott (New York) and My 2700th Post #atozchallenge

First, a short celebration of my 2700th post.  Happy postaversary to me.  But no time, no time to celebreate.  The Blogging from A to Z Challenge awaits.

Traveling Through Time and Space, I return to the happier days of the late 1980's, when I worked in the small upstate New York city of Endicott, New York.

I worked in this building for almost nine years, and I still return to this building at least twice a year because my dentist works in it.

I have many memories of a village where so many streets are named after Presidents.  Washington.  Jefferson.  Madison.  Monroe.   Lincoln.  Cleveland.  Roosevelt.

This building is only a couple of blocks away from Washington Avenue, which once was the main shopping street of Endicott.  Just blocks away from IBM, which had a major facility nearby, Washington Avenue was full of prosperous businesses.  I didn't take pictures of the bustling Washington Avenue, because I didn't know, back then, that the prosperity of Endicott would, one day, be only a memory.

There was the downsizing of IBM, a company which actually started down the road in Binghamton as a manufacturer of time clocks and other time keeping devices. 

There was the death by mall of downtown shopping.  Endicott's Washington Avenue was one of many casualties. In my memories, I can still walk down the Washington Avenue of, say, 1987, in my mind. Very few businesses of that time remain.

But, worst of all, was the Plume,. "Tons of industrial solvents used to clean computer parts were dumped down drains or leached from leaky pipes into the ground for years before environmental rules required that such "spills" be reported.."  These solvents were used from the 1930's to the mid 1980's.   The case was finally settled in 2015.

Now, Endicott struggles to return to its once prosperous days.  
 

The North Brewery, Washington Avenue

There are new businesses and some new hope.  For example, where a bakery flourished for many years (and went out of business many years ago) there is now a brewery.

That's how you Endicott nowadays.

But my memories of the 90's still remain.

"E" day on Blogging from A to Z Challenge. 

Dinosaurs in Arkansas #AtoZChallenge

My spouse, growing up, lived and breathed dinosaurs.

Back then, dinosaurs weren't quite as popular a subject as they are today.  My spouse read every book on dinosaurs available at the local library.  There was no Internet in the 1960's to supplement those books.

His hope was to major in paleontology in college, but the college he could afford (his parents didn't do much to support his desire for higher education and he sometimes had to work several jobs during the year and during breaks) didn't have that major.  So, his life took different directions.

One of those directions led us to Arkansas in the early 1980's, where we lived for five years.

Fast forward to 2017 when Arkansas voted to have a state dinosaur, Arkansaurus fridayi.

Now, ironically, it appears that dinosaurs may have once lived near the land we owned. Dinosaur fossils were recently discovered about 50 miles from where we lived.

It was interesting enough to find out that Confederate soldiers camped, during the Civil War, near our land, in a small town called Cane Hill (now known as Canehill.)  But living near where dinosaurs once roamed was a thrill to my spouse when I told him.

Buckyball, Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, AR 2013

When we returned to Arkansas for a brief visit in 2013, we visited the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.  In case you are wondering, its most famous acquisition may be the Norman Rockwell work "Rosie the Riveter".

Portion of outdoor art trail, Crystal Bridges, August 2013

The dinosaur fossils were discovered during the building of a new wing and construction has temporarily been halted while scientists study the find.

Imagine that - as of February, 2017, Arkansas has a state dinosaur, and my spouse learned about a dinosaur new to him.  With all his reading, he was not familiar with Arkansaurus fridayi.

Traveling through time and space - we just never imagined how far back in time this Challenge would take us.

 And now, as a bonus, a Weird Al song about dinosaurs.  Too bad it doesn't start with "D".

Computers - #AtoZChallenge

I originally wrote this post in May 2009 and repeated it in October of 2011.


Many people I know can not remember a time without computers.  Even me, and I'm in my 60's. But, in my youth, I saw computers only during the reporting of national elections (it was a big deal), but there were also the mysterious "do not bend, spindle or mutilate" punch cards that were enclosed with our phone bills.

Computers were huge, incredibly expensive, and owned only by universities, the military, and corporations, as far as I know.  Unlike, say, typewriters.  Remember them?

There is still a typewriter (another moment of nostalgia, shall we?) in a room near where our department at work is located.  I wonder if it is the last one the company I work for owns.  Back in 2011, finding it lead to a discussion with other baby boomers (in the presence of a co-worker in his 20's) about manual typewriters, carbon paper, those erasers with a brush on the end we used to erase errors on carbon paper, and Liquid Paper (which still exists).  Then, we got on the subject of long distance phone service and how expensive it was. (I think he was a little puzzled  by the concept of "long distance".) 

I got to thinking about my son, who is just slightly younger than this former co-worker.  An innocent question my son asked in his teens led to this post, which I've modified slightly.  Sometimes I think his generation and mine were born on different planets.

I remember other computer things, too: mainframe computers, keypunch machines (I used them in college, imagine that!), writing simple programs (I took a semester of both Fortran and Cobol, didn't pursue programming, but I enjoyed what I did do in college courses), monitors with a green and white screen.  I was even on CompuServe for a while in the late 90's.  Strangely, I never participated in the pre-Internet online world, and sometimes I wonder why.

Who ever would have thought....

Now, my post from 2009:

So How Did The Baby Boomers Get online in 1958?

First, I am not trying to mock my teenage son. But it shows how, in some ways, the mindset of the present generation is so much different from those of us born only 35 or 40 years earlier.

My son knows about what the computers of the 1950's looked like. People of my generation remember the UNIVAC.  My son has studied it.

Do you remember the famous "hoax" picture of the 1954 RAND prototype of the first home computer? Maybe that was what son was thinking about when he asked his question.

One evening he asked me "how did you get online when you were growing up? Did you have one of those huge computers in your bedroom?" I thought he was kidding me.

He wasn't.

Although he intellectually knew there was no "internet" as he knows it back in the 1950's or 1960's, he had to believe that there was something out there that I used, something very clunky, using technology full of vacuum tubes.

He couldn't believe I grew up in an era without home computers. 

Interestingly, son is also interested in "old technology". For example, he is looking for a good Betamax player (and has several Betamax tapes). He just couldn't make that intellectual leap of "no computer, no Internet".

Let's think about this a minute. I bought my first home computer (a bit later than other people, I admit) in late 1996 and went online in January of 1997. So my son was in kindergarten at the time.  That computer connected through a 14,400 baud modem,  and used Mosaic as its browser.  (How dated can you be?)

From his viewpoint, there was a computer in his life "forever".

This leads to another question.  When did the Internet start? The answer is complicated. This link has quite the discussion and the answer is..."it depends".

But no, we didn't have either the Internet or home computers in 1958.  Just typewriters, carbon paper and long distance.

Join me each day (except Sundays) this month, when my theme is "traveling through time and space."

Binghamton (Shooting) #atozchallenge

On April 3, 2009, a troubled 41 year old immigrant, Jiverly Voong, walked into an adult classroom for immigrants at the American Civic Association on the edge of downtown Binghamton, New York.  Minutes later, 14 people, including the shooter, was dead.

Most of the victims were, themselves, immigrants.

On April 10, 2009, I wrote my first blog post, based on an email I wrote the day of the shooting, as people concerned about my safety called or emailed me.

Since then, I have written other blog posts.  This is the one I wrote last April 3.  Here are some others:

Several about Roberta King, the teacher in that classroom.

Several commemorating other shootings.


And this one.

Not all memories are good ones.  I know that, as I travel through time and space.  Although I know someone who works for ACA (he wasn't there at the time), and another person whose mother in law was in the building when the shooting happened (she wasn't injured), I didn't know any of the dead - although I had met one of them several years before.  Still, every time there is a mass killing in the news, I think back to that day, and can feel only sadness for those going through the experience now.

Monument to the Innocent Dead, Binghamton, New York

Every April 3, I blog about that shooting, a shooting that some have called "the deadliest mass shooting that everyone forgot".  This year, with immigration very much in the news, this post becomes even harder to write.

What a shame that even writing this yearly commemorative post has, itself, become a political act.

The years pass, and we in Binghamton still ask "why?"

"B" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Traveling Through Time and Space.

Local Sunday - Mushrooms and Trout

Today, a day off from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge to feature some local food from yesterday's indoor Binghamton, New York Farmers Market.

Mushrooms.  Yes they tasted better than supermarket - spouse, who loves to cook, commented on their texture.  They were organic, too.  We had passed them by all winter, but spouse finally decided to buy some.  Why did we wait so long?

Trout (smoked and fresh). We bought both and had the fresh trout last night. Would you like the recipe for the trout spouse used?  Let me know in the comments, and I might work it into an April post.

A nearby stall featured hand pies, cookies, and English muffins.  Not sure if the blueberries or apples in these pies were grown locally, but they easily could have been.

And if you wanted oatmeal, there was even that. (Yes, there is some farming of oats in this area.)

In April, my one free day from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I will feature either a "Local Sunday" or a "Spring Things".

Tomorrow, it's back to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Amazing April #atozchallenge

Please join me as I Travel Through Time and Space on the first day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge to a playground in the Bronx, New York City, on a mild April day in 1959.

A group of girls are gathered in a circle.  One bounces a clean, pink Spauldeen ball and starts to chant, standing on her left leg as she swings her right leg back and forth over the bouncing ball:

"A my name is AM,  I come from Arizona, and I sell apples!".  AM passes the ball to the next girl, who bounces it against the sidewalk, chanting "B my name is...."

Many of us have childhood memories.  Some are happy, some are not.  But when we grow up sometimes travel to places we never would have dreamed of ending up in.  

The little girl from the Bronx never would have dreamed that every day now, we travel all over the world, carried by electrons and the interwebs, to even more amazing places.  Hence, my theme, Travel Through Time and Space.

Today, on the first day of the month, thanks to the Internet,  I blog about a giraffe called April.

Who ever thought a pregnant giraffe named April, living in an upstate New York animal park about 30 minutes from where I live near Binghamton, would become an Internet sensation?

After the owners of the park decided to train a webcam on her during the third week of February, hoping she would give birth any time, April the giraffe, as they like to say, went viral.

At any one given moment, upwards of 210,000 people from all over the world watched April and her caregivers.  Thousands participated in chats on their site on You Tube.

And now, all the signs of labor ready to begin are there.  What could be more fitting on the first day of April?  Here's a link to the live, official April channel on You Tube.

I couldn't believe I was spending an hour each night watching a giraffe's butt, along with those  thousands of other people.  I was learning about wax caps, udder filling, how giraffes give birth, and how endangered these majestic creatures are.

I learned to tell the chief zoologist, Allysa, and the other giraffe caregiver, Corey, apart, just by viewing their hands (as they fed April lettuce near the web cam).  I watched interviews with them, and with the owner of the Animal Adventure Park, Jordan Patch.  I learned about young Ava Patch.

What an incredible journey this has been for Jordan and his family, and for all of us who have bonded over a webcam.

Life takes us to many unexpected places, and that's no April Fools.  And that's how the Spauldeen bounces....

Are you part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  If not, here's a quick rundown.  The title of this post starts with A.  On Monday (we have Sundays off, except for April 30) my blog post title with start with B, and so forth.  On April 30, a rare Sunday for A to Z, my post will begin with Z.

"A" on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Traveling Through Time and Space.