Tiger Cubs

St. Augustine Wild Reserve brought tiger cubs to our school last week. Minus this (narrowly escaped) disaster involving a "service dog" and a tiger, it was a really cool experience. It is so sad to me that these beautiful animals (and so many others) are endangered. I hate that our world has "paved paradise to put up a parking lot". While I wish that we could see these animals in their natural habitat, I am not naive enough to think that they will survive in the wild much longer (even if we start making dramatic changes now). It's too late; humans have already destroyed too much of God's creation. So now we must preserve endangered species in zoos and wild reserves. I know that captivity is not ideal, but if it weren't for these protected environments most endangered species would extinct. And so I'm thankful for places like the St. Augustine Wild Reserve. And I definitely foresee a visit in my near future.

(Please excuse my voice on this video...I was talking to the white tiger and then one of the workers from the reserve...Clearly, I was unaware that my friend was filming!)

The white one was so cute, he kept putting his paw on my hand and then pushing his nose up under my hand to get me to pet his head. He was born on the grounds at the St Augustine Wild Reserve. They do not intentionally breed animals, but when they rescued the tigers parents they had to keep them in a common enclosure until they built separate ones. They were quite surprised when this little tiger and his sister appeared one morning, because they thought the mom was not able to have babies! His sister died from a birth defect when she was only 5 weeks old. She was born with a hole in her heart.

The orange one was absolutely adorable. He kept coming back over to me and rubbing against the enclosure. I think he likely that we both have "orange" hair. :) He was given to the Wild Reserve by a zoo that could not care for him.

I just loved their visit. I had never been so close to baby tigers before (though I once had by picture taken with a Liger-and I promise I didn't make that up, they do exist). I know that these animals can attack and be very dangerous, but the cubs were just so sweet. I totally understand how ignorant people would want to adopt one. Luckily, there are organizations like St. Augustine Wild Reserve that are willing to take care of these animals when the aforementioned ignorant people realize that baby tigers become adult tigers.

Today, We Are ALL Hokies

We Are Virginia Tech

by Nikki Giovanni

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devestated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think we are and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.
We will prevail.
We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

Because April is Poetry Month

"Ode to the Egret"

A grey gas-guzzler

travels on a country road.

A brawny brown bird

wanders into unknown danger.

flip flip

flap flap

fwooooooshh

FUMP

… ...

How unfortunate

for the poor egret.

A Glimpse Into My Classroom

I always find myself way too busy with school work for both my grad classes and the classes I teach! And somehow blogging seems to make it's way to the bottom of my list (along with hanging pictures, putting together bookshelves, and hanging shades!).

I have nothing interesting to blog about at the moment, so I thought I'd post a link to my new teacher website! Since teaching consumes roughly 70% of my life, you can see what I'm up to the majority of the time! :)

http://teachers.fsdb.k12.fl.us/~kilpatrickj/