More Experimental Farm and a Picnic with Jack and Kate

Now that Matt is finished with the craziness of year-end, his focus has shifted to our massive basement renovation. Needless to say, Simon and I are on our own most weekend mornings. Today we were lucky to have some company in our adventures as Kate was also a work widow for the day. We met her and Jack at the Agricultural Museum to check out some animals and all of the new babies. Simon and Jack both have a very similar disposition so it's great to get them together. We spent the first little while in the barn with all of the sheep, goats, horses, cows, pigs, bunnies and a token donkey. Simon and Jack were both thrilled to get to pet one of the resident bunnies who was out of his cage being introduced to the youngsters. Simon was a bit hesitant about touching the bunny but he kept talking about the soft bunny for the rest of the day so I gather it was a highlight. Once we checked out the animals outside, we hit the play structure. We timed things perfectly because things were still relatively calm and uncrowed at this early morning hour. After a few hundred trips up the stairs and down the slide, we moved onto the cow barn where we could get up close and personal with the baby calves. Jack loved it and him and Simon both were imploring (i.e. shouting at) the sleeping calves to, "stand up". We stayed in there for about as long as I could take the smell and then headed back outside for a snack. Next we headed up to check out the tractor exhibit. I had never made it up there before but Simon obviously knew the way (he spends quite a bit of time here with his grandparents). Simon is obsessed with tractors (a.k.a "Dan") and points out anyting even closely resembling one in all of our travels. A few more trips down the slide and a quick trip through the now crowed barn concluded our visit. We capped off the rest of the morning with a picnic and then headed home for a much needed nap. It was a great activity for such a beautiful day.