I got flowers in the spring

And were you wondering about the Coati Day predictions for weather in south Jersey? Yeah, me too. The Cohanzick Zoo in Bridgeton had what is either, according to a typo-riddled caption on the Daily Journal its 20th annual Coati Day, or more than their 20th according to NJ.com, they brought out a coati and a pair of pens for the animal to choose between.

According to all accounts, though, Terreto (an approximately 12-year-old male) considered the spring cage (with ``branches and limbs'' to climb on) and the winter cage (``with blankets inside'') and after some wandering around went into the winter cage, to some booing.

Since all this was Sunday --- they do it the day before Groundhog Day because nobody cares about weather-predicting animals on the 3rd of February --- they also threw in a prediction for the Splendid Bowl, and Terreto ignored the Seahawks bag and ran right for the Patriots one. I bet New England paid him off, too.

Both the Daily Journal and the NJ.com articles answer the question of why they have Coati Day --- basically, winter is boring for zoos, and they didn't have groundhogs, but did have coatis --- and also why they don't have the prediction done by the trio of female coatis they were using a couple years ago. According to Kelly Shaw, a zoo employee who oversaw Terreto's work, the female coatis ``weren't really as personable as Dom'' --- that would be Dom Coatimundi, their first weather-predicting coati --- and would tend to hide away from the crowds of people. Terreto, though, ``really let his personality show so he's our new meteorologist. He's just so cute, and social.'' I can't help but fear that he also spends some time mundisplaining weather-predicting to the females.

Happily, the Daily Journal's ``You may also like'' is a set of thematically appropriate other links: ``Dogs and cats available for adoption at SPCA in Vineland'', ``Snow Downtown in Vineland'', ``Pets available for adoption at the Cumberland County SPCA'', and ``Mr Millville Contestants'', all of them articles not more than a month old. There's no deranged or obviously horrible links here.

Trivia: The British Board of Trade lifted its ban on the use of steel in bridges in 1877. Source: Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America, Henry Petroski.

Currently Reading: Magnificent Mistakes in Mathematics, Alfred S Posamentier, Ingmar Lehmann.