Big Woods and Petting Zoos

Another busy weekend with the kids. On Saturday we again ran up to the Nicolet and hunt/hiked around a new area. Beautiful this time of year and even flushed a couple of grouse, although I didn't shoot. I am not actually sure how well Merrick will tolerate me shooting a 12 ga. while he is in the back pack--but I take the gun anyways. On Sunday we spent the late morning at a nearby apple orchard that allows you to pick your own and has a nice petting zoo as well. The kids are good about not eating the apples as we pick them (cortlands and honey crisp), in fact Merrick hardly eats them at all. The petting zoo portion also sells ice cream cones filled with mixed grains to feed the animals (goats, sheep, shetland ponies, donkeys, peacocks, llamas). Merrick ran around and practiced both his animal sounds and his manners. Telling each animal "thank you" after he fed them and hollaring 'BaaBaa" at each animal that was remotely sheep like. He is also convinced that even the llamas are named, Cleo. We were following an ignorant collection of humanity that wasn't sure if the potbellied pigs were goats or not, and at one cage when Sophia pointed out to us that there were peacocks this group asked her if she was sure they were peacocks, because they were calling them turkeys. At any rate Sophia looked at them with all the confidence in the world and said "they are green aren't they." I do think that she gets her sarcasm and intolerance of fools from her mother.
Then it was a quick shopping trip to get Sophia some missing hockey equipment as she starts a mini-might type of program in a few weeks--more to come on that.