Wasn't it Spring yesterday?

April 11 - temperature in the 70s, sunburn, sandals and t-shirts, gorgeous Springfest.

April 15 - snow covering the daffodils and hyacinths. Welcome to Indiana!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Spring has finally sprung, and to celebrate, Ana visited Purdue's Annual Springfest, featuring a Bug Bowl with cricket spitting competitions and an open house at the School of Veterinary Medicine. Purdue gets over 40,000 visitors, mostly families with children, for this event. It's packed. I only stayed for a short time and hung out around the vet school for the most part. I ate no bugs and spit no crickets this time, but there's always next year!

The campus was filled with yellow-and-white striped tents, all packed with parents and their children, run by student volunteers. The temperature reached the 70's and I got a bit of a sunburn while walking around; it was a perfect sunny spring day for Springfest. I headed over towards the petting zoo.

They had your typical llamas, goats, and rabbits. They seemed to be mostly hot and tired. There were fans in the barn, but the animals were just starting to shed their winter coats due to our extra-long, extra-cold winter and the day was just too much. The veterinary students had posters hanging by all of the animals discussing their proper care and general facts about them. They had a stethoscope with at least one of the rabbits so you could hear its heartbeat; that was surrounded by kids so I didn't get too close. They also had some ducklings and chicks to hold and pet. It was small, but really cool and it seemed to be a great learning experience for the kids. They also had a cow.

This is Buttercup. She seemed pretty done with the crowds and the day by the time I got there. She was the main attraction and had a pretty long line waiting to see her every time I walked by. Why, you ask? Do you get to milk her? Does she do tricks? Not exactly, but she does provide a very unique learning experience.

Can you see the appeal? Towards her rear, she has a fistula. What is a fistula? It is a hole. A hole between her stomach and the outside. It has a plastic ring around it and has healed nicely. This hole allows people to stick their hands inside her stomach and feel her digesting food. Yes, that's a human hand probing the cow's innards, feeling her stomach contract as it deals with the hay and grains she's eaten recently. Medically, this allows them to get healthy microbes to treat sick cows and gain a greater understanding of what might be going on inside a cow's 4-chambered stomach. It's also really cool.

Of course I did it too. It's creepy. Really creepy. But also really cool.

This guy is a retired greyhound. He's in his second career as a blood donor dog. He gives blood to have on hand at the animal hospital for surgeries and emergencies. This was an educational event, so they had a lot of really interesting exhibits to show what they do and to teach the community more about animals. Like these horses:

That is the digestive system of a horse, painted on its side so the general public can see. I couldn't tell you exactly what each organ was, but there they are in their color-coded, painted glory.

The second horse in that paddock had his skeleton painted on. I think this is a really cool idea, something I hadn't seen before. All in all, there were a lot of nice students presenting some very interesting and innovative educational experiences involving animals.

As I was heading home, I wandered through another set of nice students presenting educational experiences involving animals.

Yep, they're cooking mealworms for the audience to try. There was a cockroach exhibit and a few other things, but this one was the only picture-worthy exhibit I could get close to in the Bug Bowl area. If we have time, next year I'll drag Lee and make him spit a few crickets or try some mealworms. Stay tuned!