Monkeys, Goats & Emus - Oh My!

With the last breath of summer and a need to procrastinate from house work, packing, and work work I suggested to Daddy that after lunch we take a ride to Southwick's Zoo. We had been talking all summer about taking Grace to the zoo but, it was a busy summer so we never made it. So off we went. Daddy was very excited.

It's not a huge zoo but it's very cute and there wasn't really a crowd so we could let Grace led the way. There are a lot of Monkeys and Monkey like creatures and most of your standard zoo type animals. The neat thing is that there are picnic tables right aside most of the enclosures so you can enjoy a snack and taunt... I mean watch the animals. :-)

I don't know that I can say for sure that Grace liked the animals. She really studied them, I think she especially liked any where that she could stand and watch the animals by herself. If Grace could really talk and say what her favorite part of the zoo was I suspect it is the slide in the playground. She was definitely annoyed that the small merry go round wasn't running. I had to carry her crying away.

Southwick's had two really neat areas where you could interact with the animals. First we walked around the Deer Forest which was basically a big enclosure with deer that you can walk around in and feed the deer. As you can imagine the deer are not afraid of people. Grace and I sat on a bench while I tried to get the deer to come close. I had one eating out of my hand. The fun ended when another deer found out supply of corn in Grace's stroller and ate it.

Then we took Grace into the petting zoo, which was really just an area with a bunch of goats that we about as tall as Grace. At first she didn't really know what to make of them especially when they surrounded her. I tried to get us some food to feed them from one of those gum ball machines but the goats are too smart. They know where the food comes from and were eating it before I could get it out. They crowded all around me and one nibbled my shorts so I freaked out and just put the food on the ground. We probably let Grace run around for 10 minutes and she touched a few goats.

Petting this goat took a bit of a wind-up. Grace had her hand out walked towards the goat with her had out. Then we she got to the goat she just barely touched it with one finger.

Mommy's favorite goat.

We were sitting having a snack and Grace wanted to play with my camera so I showed her the pictures I had taken. When I came to this picture she said, "bird".

We certainly had a fun day and can't wait to take Grace back next summer.