It's that time of year.
The dock, boat and launch come in, and the weatherization maneuvers come out.
This year, instead of trying to do it themselves, or just sending Chris, a family day was made of it. Four people was bound to make things move swiftly ( which it did ) and from there, it was to be back out of the water and headed East ( I think? I am, after all, directionally challenged ) to an orchard that Ward and I had never made a sojourn to.
We make an annual event of it at a place closer to home, but it lacks the gimmicks. The only family friendly features that are offered are an overpriced wagon ride and a slide attached to an old apple wagon.
Anderson's was very much NOT that. The kids, as you are about to see, had a blast.
Our first stop was to the pony rides. The boys hadn't been that close to a horse, save for petting an occasional nose, so they were excited.
Braeden had some issues with the dreaded ass - saddle battle, but he had a good time.
Bruce Campbell would've been proud. And envious.
From there it was on to the barnyard and what I referred to as Goat Central. Fat, spoiled creatures, finely skilled in the art of mooching.
Braeden worked the pulley...
...and this guy, on the other end, and about 15 feet up, waited patiently for his chow.
Jennah just had to feed the zebra. I think she was more excited about that one simple animal than about the whole day itself. Two dollars worth of feed later and the little fella decided that maybe he's lost interest... until someone else came along with a handful of pellets.
I don't know where she gets it from, this innate urge to be one with nature. We're city people. We've never owned any strange, exotic pets ( unless you count an unusually large and cranky cat ), nor have we spent an inordinate amount of time in a farm-like setting.
Yet, somehow, long before we had her in a thematic school setting, Jennah has felt compelled to collect frogs, rescue turtles and just generally love up on God's small creatures.
We called her Elmira for years, because she had no concept of the notion that she was possibly over loving whatever she'd had her heart set on keeping that particular week.
Now she's older, and she understands what is an acceptable degree of affection displayed towards the critters ( not that it stops her from clutching poor Dinah to her chest in a bear hug and mauling her with snuggles.
We doubt that Dinah-saur minds it too terribly much. They seem to have an understanding. )
While the boys did enjoy the experience, Jennah actually learned from it, and asked a lot of very intelligent questions.
No big shock that I had to literally pry her away from the animal pens. Between the zebra and the reindeer ( which I sadly, did not get any photos of ), she didn't want to do anything but play with the her new four legged buddies.
But pry her away I did, and after much chasing, we started to move on....
Continued in pt. 2
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