My husband is working nights this week. Ugh. There are several reasons this is not my favorite work schedule for him, not the least of which being that I feel the need to stay out of the house all the time to let him get some sleep. Though we can and sometimes do stay home while he’s sleeping, it generally leads to me feeling anxious about the girls being loud, and then crabby because invariably they are loud, and then guilty because of course they’re loud, they’re kids, and I hate fussing at them about it. So needless to say, when Daddy works nights we try to stay out of the house as much as possible. Today I decided to make the most of it. After a little bonding time with Daddy over some archery in the morning, we hit the road to have a bit of fun out and about.
I decided to take the girls back to the dirty weird zoo we visited last summer. Why did we return to such an odd place, you may be wondering? Well, if you recall from our visit last year, though the place was kind of strange and dirty, it really was fun and Miss totally enjoyed it. So I was kind of excited to check it out again now that both of my older girls could appreciate it.
I was happy to see this guy right when we pulled in. He was one of my favorites last year and was right there to greet us when we got out of the car.
Okay, really he totally ignored us, but it was fun to see him again. The place still had the long stretch of trail that was full of trash, but happily no bison skulls in varying stages of decay this time.
And of course, they still had tons of fun animals to feed. This time the animals were all much cleaner as well. A major improvement. My favorite thing about this place is that they give each person a bag of bread when you come in and you can feed almost all of the animals there. This time we were told we could feed any of them except the new wolf and dingos. No problem there. The rest of the animals were eager to accept our offerings. In fact, we had almost the exact same problem this time with the goat assault that we had last time. As soon as we came in and got our bread those guys were all up in our business wanting to get some. Lass started screaming (just like she did last year) and Miss started trying to climb my leg (just like she did last year) and I started hip checking goats and hustling my wagon out of their range. After that, Miss was kind of hesitant to feed any of the animals and Lass wouldn’t get out of the wagon. But they still loved looking at the animals and watching me feed them.
After a while we saw this goose on the trail and Miss wanted to feed him. She took a piece of bread and tried to take it to him, but he just waddled away from her. Finally she threw the bread at him and then ran like hell when he turned around and started coming back towards her to get it yelling, “Momma, I knew I could do it!”
And that was her mantra for the rest of the morning. Once she braved the goose, she was all in.
She really wanted to feed the llama. She kept calling him “Llama Llama,” like the book character. I had to distract a few other animals (a zebra, a cow, and a pony) so she could have a clear path to feed Llama Llama. She was really proud of herself after she did it.
She wanted to make sure each of the animals in this area got a piece of bread, and she kept pointing out animals that hadn’t, “Give one to him, Momma” and “He needs some bread, he looks hungry.” She was quite concerned that we try to get some bread to the ones who had gotten boxed out by the bigger and more assertive animals. So we did.
This zebra was new and very beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to a zebra before. I know I’d never fed a piece of bread to one before today.
I was a little bit surprised that my typically fearless middle child did not want anything to do with feeding the animals. She held one piece of bread the whole time. At the end of our walk through the zoo she kept saying she was going to give it to one of the pigs, but wouldn’t quite pull the trigger and throw it through the fence.
Then the goats came back and she quickly shoved it at me and ran back to the wagon with more screaming. Miss was not as fearful this time though, and actually walked up to a goat and petted him on her own. But due to the screaming of her sister, we headed out pretty quickly at that point.
When we got back to the car I asked each of the girls which animal was her favorite. Miss said the goats (really?). Lass said the horses (though both of them had seemed terrified of the huge horses). In spite of the goat terrorizing, we had a really great time again this year.
And, in a burst of mommy genius and planning, I made our lunches before we left this morning so when we got home we went straight from the car to a picnic in our front yard under our beautiful oak tree. The girls thought this was so cool.
We had some new elderberry jam on our sandwiches today. The girls had never had this kind before (or even heard of it) so we pretended it was “Bumbleberry” Jam, which is a favorite of the Care Bears. It was a big hit.
After lunch we just enjoyed a beautiful day outside.
Sis and I hung out while the older girls ran and chased each other back and forth.
Naturally they found the one remaining puddle from last night’s rain.
What a darling trio!
Totally relate to the “dirty weird zoo” (aren’t they all?). Times may change, but goats will always be terrifying, ravenous, hip-level beasts. Your Miss is fearless…hope she can boost her sis’s confidence next time!