The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

Kerri got to ride the elephants in the water.

She climbed on.

And then edged up toward the neck.

Because the neck is the strongest part of the elephant.

Sitting anywhere else hurts their back.

So this is proper elephant riding position.

Then she got showered in elephant snot.

And then the elephant bucked and twisted to shake Kerri off.

One of them bucked so hard that Kerri flew head over heals into the water, but we didn’t get that on camera.

All we got is the splash.

It was a lot of fun.

Old elephants have no teeth. In the wild after they lose all of their teeth they head to swampy areas where there are softer things to eat, but usually die of malnutrition shortly afterward. Then you wind up with an “elephant graveyard”.

But at the retirement home they make food the old elephants can eat. So they can live on.

You start by chopping lots of pumpkins.

Then you take a lot of rice.

You mix the rice with some water and pumpkin over a fire.

Then you squish in some icky smelly brown vitamins with your hands.

Then you make balls. They must be perfectly round and the same size. Elephants get really picky in their old age.

You coat them in flour so they don’t stick together.

One plate per elephant.

And you stick them right in their mouths so they don’t get too squished. Also with no teeth they can’t accidentally bite you.

There were two baby elephants at the preserve.

Actually they were more toddler elephants.

They looked really funny with their little tusks.

 

The bigger one was a girl, and she had a younger brother.

They liked to play in the water.

Tussling and trying to push each other under.

It was pretty violent.

They would climb on top of each other and hold the other one down.

Of course this isn’t as dangerous when your little brother has a built in snorkel.

They seemed to be having lots of fun.

But then it was time to come out of the river..

They were very sad.

In the afternoon the elephants go down to the river to have their bath.

Some of them like it.

They are very cooperative and go down in the water so their mahouts can splash water on them.

Others refuse to get in so we have to throw buckets of water at them.

It takes a lot of buckets to wash an elephant.

And some places are really hard to reach.

The least pleasant part is when it starts to rain.

The elephants don’t mind the rain though.