Animal Adventure Park has a video update with lots of information:



The official webcam site for live feed:


The others are not official - watch the top video for more informaiton

The big "news" is that they are wondering if April conceived a cycle later than they originally thought. Giraffe's cycle every 17 days - if she had conceived when they thought, she would have been due about February 24/25. If it was a cycle later, it could be two weeks before she has her baby.

She is NOT in labor yet - any bumps seen in her abdomen are just the baby moving around. Everything is normal, nothing to worry about, just a lot of waiting around for those few minutes of excitement!

Streaming video at:



I watched a couple of hours last night and stopped because I didn't think she was going to have her baby soon. I've never watched a giraffe have a baby except on video but from my experience monitoring my mares foaling I didn't think April was within a day or two.

Tonight she is much more restless and she's not spending any time hanging out with the giraffe outside her stall. The position of the baby has changed, which can be another sign birth is closer. I'm not sure she'll have her baby tonight but will watch for a while!

Just got this email from the White House:



It's not as stupidly designed as the other Trump surveys but there are still places for comments. It accepted my fake name and email so you don't have to give them real information.

Even with a warmer winter, I like having cooked oatmeal for breakfast. Recently at our local food co-op I saw rolled barley flakes and decided to try that instead or in combination with my oatmeal. I love the flavor but barley just doesn't cook the same way that rolled oats do. Even the organic rolled oats from the food co-op don't cook the same as the barley does.

My usual way to cook one serving of old fashioned oatmeal from the grocery (Quaker or the store brand) is to put 1/2 cup of oatmeal, 1/2 cup of milk, some cinnamon, and a shake of salt into a bowl. I microwave it for 1 minute, stir, then microwave at 30 second intervals stirring at each break until the oatmeal is thick and done. Then I add a teaspoon of butter, stir that in and add anything else I might want - fruit, honey, whatever. It works just as good for the organic rolled oat flakes from the food co-op.

The barley flakes just don't do well this way. The barley is much slower to absorb the liquid which means I have to watch the cereal cook so that it doesn't boil over. I have to break up the cooking times, let the cereal sit to let the barley absorb the milk, and pay way closer attention than I want to first thing in the morning.

Yesterday my husband was throwing out my last container of Quaker oatmeal. He mentioned that the box had a recipe for making cold oatmeal. I looked it up (at http://www.quakerovernightoats.com). Their recipe is to put equal amounts of old fashioned oatmeal and a dairy product: "Use a one-to-one ratio of raw oats and your choice of milk, yogurt, or any other dairy substitutes." Add fruit or whatever additions and let it soak in the refrigerator overnight - they recommend at least eight hours. If you like it cold, just pull it out and eat.



While I don't want cold oatmeal, I decided to adapt the recipe - I put my mix of barley and oat flakes in a bowl, added the milk (equal parts cereal and milk), covered it and let it soak overnight. This morning most of the milk was absorbed into the cereal, so much so that I added a little bit more milk, then microwaved as usual. It worked perfectly! No boiling over, perfectly cooked barley and oat meal for breakfast without a mess! And while even with closely watched barley flakes before there was more chewiness, with soaking overnight the texture was much better in my opinion - still some chewiness, but not as "raw" seeming.

Later today I will go buy some more rolled oat and barley flakes and maybe some rolled rye and wheat flakes to change out my breakfast choices.

Headline on banner right now on MSNBC. Katy Tur interviewing Nadler (D-NY) - resolution of inquiry relating to intelligence about emoluments clause, business interests & violations of 18 different laws.

Must be taken up by committee in 14 days.

The law has not been overturned in the courts, this just keeps the stay that prevents it from being enforced. But it looks very likely that it WILL be overturned!

Way to go Katy!