Someone turned on the heat this week here in Sweat Louis. It hit the low nineties on Thursday, mid-nineties on Friday and it is supposed to be in the high nineties on Saturday. To make matters worse, my car’s air conditioner seems to be on the fritz. I think that it is an electrical problem and not a mechanical or refrigerant issue. Sometimes it runs fine. Sometimes it doesn’t run at all. The car goes into the shop on Monday. Hopefully, it will have cooled off some by then.

Anne continues striving for her 31 days of biking in May, even though it is now June. She has come back from her bike rides the past two days, beet red, from the afternoon heat. On her last sojourn, she returned from the Park, with pictures of a mysterious aquatic mammal. A couple of the pictures that she took are included with this post. Unfortunately, she only had the little silver camera, so she couldn’t zoom in close enough for a really good photograph of it. We weren’t sure what it was. Was it an otter or a mink or what? She asked a friend of ours, Edward C., and he returned the following message that begs more questions than it answered. Here is his tantalizing response.

I’m pretty sure it’s a mink, as both Mark G. and I have seen them in the Park. Also, Forest Park Forever and the Missouri Department of Conservation both acknowledge the presence of mink in the Park. How they got there is an interesting story, known for certain only to a few, but filled with hints of intrigue and a whiff of illegal activity.

It really shouldn’t be all that surprising that wildlife like mink are living near by, even though we live in the middle of a large metropolitan area. At about 1300 acres, Forest Park is one of the largest urban parks in the country. I have seen deer, turkeys, foxes and coyotes in the Park. Earlier last month, Anne was able to photograph the opossum, pictured below, while riding in the Park.