Chickens and Rabbits and Goats ... Oh My!

Remember last year when we went to Charlevoix?  Well, I apparently forgot to post about our little day trip to the Antrim County Fair, but let me just say, it had quite an effect on my little boy.  One sheep in particular, Fishie, scared the daylights out of him, scarring him for life and ruining farm animals for him forever.

So, being the kind and compassionate mother I am, I joined up with my mom and sister to take Baylor and Amalia to the Kent County Youth Fair.  I guess I was hoping it'd be a kind of cathartic, face-your-fears sort of experience.  Let's just see how it went, shall we?

Baylor was understandably apprehensive upon our arrival.  

(Though he was particularly interested in the fan atop the rabbit barn and talked about it the rest of the day.)

We saw some cute rabbits ...

... but, quiet as they were, he was pretty terrified of them.  From here on out I held him through every barn we went to.

When I pointed out that these rabbits had the same hair color as Daddy, he lightened up a bit.  But trust me, it was very short-lived.

The guinea pigs were difficult to see and were mostly sleeping, so he didn't have too much trouble with them.  But he didn't want to be put down either.

If there was something he was anxious about, I could feel his little body tense up in my arms.  Poor kiddo!

I thought he might actually like the horses; we see a lot on our way to my parents' house and he is always excited to see them.  But, alas, he was almost more terrified of them than he was the rabbits.  *sigh*

Thank goodness he can't read yet!

We watched a horse and a pony get a bath, and though he thought it was interesting he still didn't want to be put down.

These were the miniature horses they use for the kiddie horse ride.  Unfortunately (or fortunately in Baylor's case), that wasn't open yet.

Next we went to the chicken barn.  There were lots of roosters.  Needless to say, it was a bit noisy in there.

And pretty as many of them were, Baylor was upset and begging to leave the entire time we were in there.  Yes, I felt like a bad mom, but I also felt like he should see that there is nothing to be afraid of.

In an outside tent, we encountered this gigantic, beautiful, puffed-up turkey.  His name is Handsome.  He was AWESOME!

We saw some sleeping ducks, which I'm sure Baylor would have ordinarily enjoyed had he not been traumatized by all the cock-a-doodle-dooing in the barn.

This turkey was much less beautiful than the one we saw previously, and when he lunged at us, I thought Baylor was going to pass out or bolt from the fright!

Next up was the goat barn, which luckily wasn't as noisy as I thought it was going to be.  There were lots of goats on leashes milling about with their owners, though, and that put Baylor on edge.

We somehow timed our next barn visit perfectly and visited the pig barn at nap time.  It was wonderfully quiet in there, and I think Baylor almost enjoyed seeing the pigs sleeping.

That is, until this one's leg, seen sticking out of the gate, twitched a little bit and scared the bejeezus out of the little man.

Next up was the beefy cattle barn.  They were HUGE!

And, by and large, quite sleepy.  Mollie was pretty unsettled by the giant animals ...

... to say the least.

As we walked through the barn, we saw a girl asleep on her cow.  No, seriously!

Just next door was the milk cow barn.  They seemed much more docile and were actually quite beautiful.

We finally made it to a non-animal barn, and Baylor was delighted to be free from anxiety for a while.

We bought a couple t-shirts for the kids, then we headed over to the concession stands to grab a bite of lunch.

Not knowing what would be available, I brought lunch for the kiddos; nothing beats a good pbh&j (peanut butter, honey, and jelly), some grapes, and string cheese!  Mollie got the typical veggie and "gruel" (a.k.a., baby oatmeal and milk), with a side of grapes and Kraft American Cheese.  Both kids were satisfied, and I was happy I didn't have to feed them horribly unhealthy fair food.

Baylor did get to try a little bit of an elephant ear, though, and I think he enjoyed it.  It was quite different than the ones we get at Festival, but it was still very good.

We hurried through the last of lunch so we could make it over to another barn for a goat milking contest.  Yes, apparently such things exist.  First they put the goats into these little guillotine-looking contraptions ...

Then the kids sat down and milked them as fast as they could for 1 minute.  It was interesting to see the different techniques and speculate who was going to win.

As it turns out, longer strokes won the race over the short quick movements, and the tall kid (whose head I apparently cut off in the picture) won by a long shot.

Baylor was apprehensive of the whole event ...

... and Mollie mostly just wanted to get down and run around.  Being cooped up all morning is tough on a little girl!

We were going to stay for the next event - some sort of "speed" grooming competition - but it was supposed to last for 45 minutes, so we left before it got started.  Baylor initially walked around ...

... and stopped to have his picture taken in the cut-out board ...

... but the next tent was the sheep tent.  (Cue the ominous music.)  Sweet as they may have looked to most people ...

... they apparently terrified my children.

Especially Baylor ...

... oh, Baylor!

Not even the sight of newly-sheared sheep in turtlenecks could cheer him up!

Though, through his tears, he was able to laugh at these sheep eating their friend's red t-shirt.

I'll admit, some of them looked a little freaky.  Like this one with the bizarre face poof and leg warmers.

With the terror of the sheep tent over with, we headed over to the petting zoo tent.  Quite delightfully, we ran into some adorable baby animals!  Like piglets ...

... a calf ...

... a miniature horse ... (yes, I know it's not necessarily a baby, but it looked like one to the kids)

... a couple of lambs ...

... and some chicks!  Now, I'm not saying the kids weren't scared of the baby animals, but they were much more intrigued by the babies than any other animals they'd seen.

After being in the petting zoo, we stopped to wash our hands.  Baylor wanted to wash his even though he hadn't touched any animals.

He was surprisingly upset to leave given how upset he had been to simply be there in the first place, but we were able to pry him away.  On our way to the car, we saw this little tent and had to snap a picture.  Doesn't it just sound like something you'd do in fourth grade?  "Ooh, take this test and find out if you're going to hell!  I'll give you the answers in algebra, okay?  My cootie catcher is in my other book."

I hated putting Baylor and Mollie through the "torture" of seeing animals at the fair (?!?!?!), but I think it was good for them in the long run.  Hopefully, with increased exposure, they won't be so afraid of farm animals.  We shall see!