Meanwhile, Back on the Farm

The boy and I have made a trip to help out on the farm and visit both sets of grandparents. We look forward to seeing Patrick's parents soon, but so far we've had a pretty big animal-focus on this visit. Here's a glimpse of what my parents call "The Funny Farm."

The munchkin adores the cat. Though the cat looks chummy sitting in his stroller, she is actually not all that friendly with him. Of course, I think part of her charm is her elusiveness, so he continues adore her.

When boy meets miniature donkey. He didn't like the donkey too close, but he was pretty interested when there was a little space. This donkey (named Moses) is one sweet little guy.

Petting the donkey. (obviously)

Meeting Porthos (one of the three musketeers)

Male emu laying on eggs for eight weeks without eating.

Seems to me the female emu eats enough for two. Not that she's chunky; she's just seemed to have an appetite the whole time I've been here.

Miniature horse: Aramis.

My llama greeting committee. Have to let the other female emu out of her enclosure and into the pasture and the goats crowd me, but the llamas were quite polite, just curious.

Clancy the wallaby. A bit of a shy fellow, but fascinating. He's a male, so there is no pouch -- just thought I'd say that up front.

Asimov, the umbrella cockatoo, is one of the oldest animals on the farm-- oldest in terms of duration on the farm so far, that is. Of course, his life expectancy is 100, so he will inevitably out-live the rest of them too.

Isaac, the African Grey, arrived not long after Asimov. Cockatoos supposedly have the intelligence of a 2-3 year old human child and African Greys supposedly have the intelligence of a 5-year-old. He talks quite well in the things he says. His life expectancy is 50.

Abish the Toucan is fairly new. She is not the same kind as Toucan Sam; she is a smaller breed. You can't tell in this picture but she's very pretty and colorful. Toucans are not in the parrot family and a significant difference between them is that toucans have soft beaks whereas parrots could bite your finger off.

These are prairie dogs: Meschach and Shadrach.

Hope you enjoyed my little tour of the farm. As the weather gets nicer, I will need to get the munchkin in more pictures with the animals, but as it rained and then snowed recently I wasn't all that interested in taking him out into the muddy cold. More to come.