Petting Zoo

Last Saturday since Daddy had the day off, we piled Shannon into her stroller and rolled her past the Royal Museum with its tall totem poles, past the stony Legislature building, and up Beacon Hill, which is covered in manicured gardens, duck ponds, stone bridges, and other sensory delights. We passed through a maze of luxuriantly flowering bushes and towering foliage. This is a city for gardeners. We soon arrived at our destination, the petting zoo. No one was at the front desk except a cat. They trusted families to make their donations unaided. We walked past a peacock that was being chased by a toddler, an albino peacock, and a very placid peahen before we reached the pens with the recently sheared alpacas, the potbellied pig, the baby donkey and its mama, and finally the petting area. It was full of nanny goats and baby goats. Many of them had been born early last month. They were surrounded by reaching kids (the human kind), and they seemed to like the head scratching and side patting. Shannon went crazy. She loved it. One hairy kid tried to clamber on my lap. I rubbed its little bleating nose and kept it from bumping my baby out the way.

All the pictures are on Anthony's camera, but maybe I'll add some later. Anyway, I think I'm starting to like this neighborhood.