With the lighter load of kids (2 instead of 4), we are much more mobile. We took advantage of this (and the beautiful weather) this week by visiting the High Park Zoo.
It was a crowded place, since this week is March Break for the school kids. It was also busy because there were special activities being held to help raise awareness and funds for the High Park Zoo. In case you haven't heard, mayor Rob Ford is cutting funding for it, and unless enough money is raised (which is highly unlikely), it is scheduled to close in June of this year. We are obviously not pleased about this.
We saw Barbary sheep, Mouflon sheep, bison, yaks, peacocks, capybara, Highland cattle, llamas and an emu.
One of the zookeepers was feeding the animals from the outside of the fence so the kids could get a good look. Oscar and Noah enjoyed watching him feed carrots to the bison.
Noah said he was scared of the emu, and that he prefers small animals to big ones. He says the same thing about the dogs in our apartment building. "I don't like big dogs. Only small dogs." I told him he'd probably like bigger dogs once he gets bigger than them!
I apologize for the excess of photos in this blog post. Those who are familiar with this blog know that I have a lot of trouble limiting photos. It is hard to choose which ones to keep in and which to leave out. And I love having lots of pictures posted as a keepsake. I know someday, if and when I have too much time on my hands, I will immensely enjoy taking a trip down memory lane, and the more photos the better!
The area where the llamas are kept was open and had some fun activities for the kids. There was a man there making balloon shapes and animals for the kids. I bought Noah a flower balloon and Oscar a monkey balloon. The money, of course, is used to raise funds for the zoo.
The llamas were behind a little fence, and the children could go up to pet them. I'm not sure if Oscar noticed them, since there were a lot of other things going on in this area (and he was a little under the weather on this day). Noah opted not to pet the llamas (probably due to that "I don't like animals that are bigger than me" attitude").
Actually, Noah got a bit of an attitude in general at this point in the excursion, and said he wanted to go. But Oscar was having too much fun shoveling hay! Oscar is just starting to walk. Actually, he could walk as of a few weeks ago, but was not sold on it being a better mode of transportation (i.e. faster) than crawling. This week he is choosing to walk a lot more of the time.
Noah finally decided that what Oscar was doing looked fun. They also had a picnic table set up with pictures of the High Park Zoo animals to colour, but I think the hay was a much more appealing activity. After all, it's not every day you get to shovel hay!
Here are a few more pictures of our beautiful spring day, enjoying the High Park Zoo, which, sadly, might not be around much longer.
#highparkzoo #highpark
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