Sundays In My City: Field Trip To Babby Farms

Welcome back, those of you here from By Claudya's weekly carnival, Sundays in my City. I haven't been posting in a while, and now we've moved from Miami, Florida, to Boise, Idaho. Big leap of faith and huge culture shock, there! So now that we're out and about in our new home, I'd love to show you what we're up to. Sunday, May 28th, we visited nearby Caldwell, Idaho, to take a family field trip to the exotic petting zoo known as Babby Farms. [Full Disclosure: Babby Farms gave us complimentary passes to visit their zoo, and three bags of animal feed, in exchange for this post. No other compensation was received and all opinions are, as always, my own.] First, I have to show you my absolute favorite photo from our visit. Jack was feeding the donkey (I think this was the donkey; I got my photos a little bit mixed up and thanks to Lyme [disease] brain, I get easily confused these days. Apologies to the Farms if I get any of my facts wrong!) and was disgusted by the hand-licking thanks he received in the process. Jack's a bit of a neat freak; he rarely likes to get dirty. Of course, there I was with my handy-dandy Nikon to capture the moment! Hilarious.Moving right along. Other than me, the members of Team Odette. Left to right, we have 12-year-old Sophia, [email protected]$$ Rob, 15-year-old Chloë, and 14-year-old Jack. And since it was hot and sunny yesterday, well, we had squinties.Ready for some animals? Me too. [Click to embiggerate.]First, we encountered a trio, I think, of deer. They were docile and welcomed our visit, and they provided a darling first encounter as we entered the pathway the would lead us throughout the zoo. Maaaaa! We encountered many animals, like the Suffolk sheep, Cashmere (Kashmir?) and Angora goats, and Yaks that the knitter and me saw and just thought, "YARN!" ;) See what I mean? Ahhh, the fluff! All the fuzziessss!
The zebra was a remarkable fella. He (she?) loved to visit and didn't want us to go. Bye-bye, zeb. Why, hellew, llama-dama-ding-dong! Nice to meetcha! The yak took food from Chloë's hand like candy from a baby.  Likewise, the miniature zebu enjoyed a good munch of feed. All the animals appeared to be well-fed, but visiting with the kids and eating their grub seemed like an extra-special treat. We're still with the zebu here, but I just had to show you that huge grin on Sophie's face. The kids were enjoying their time, that's for sure! Ah, but the ponies. Showjumper Sophie had a great time visiting horses again, and it seemed to be quite mutual. That visit lasted quite a while. The fuzzier pony seemed to befriend Chloë, meanwhile. Jack was a little chicken-y about feeding some of the animals, so he gave his feed temporarily to Rob. Hence the tattooed arm feeding this charming guy.
I'm not sure if this was the mule or the hinny, but it was clopping right over for its own visit with Team Odette.
Hello.
And this would be the donkey who was mentioned above in the gross feeding incident with Jack. Hee!! Good boy! The zedonk was also quite friendly, and enjoyed a good petting from Sophia while Rob offered some munchies. Likewise, the zorse relished its tasty treats from Chloë, next to the zedonk.
Our next visit occurred with the dromedary camel, which brought me back to the memory of my parents taking my sister and 3-year-old me to maybe the Bronx zoo or something? Anyway, my mom had bought herself a delicious frozen elixir and gave me the cup to finish the last third or so. As she carried me in her arms, back to a dromedary camel, Mr. Camel leaned over and took that cup right out of my hands, drank my drink, and at the cup and all! I was so upset! But I didn't hold it against this guy. Probably a different camel, right? ;)
Camel toes. The bactrian camel, in the midst of a good spring shedding spree, was pretty chill. Maybe you can tell?Wouldja look at all that camel fluff?! YARN!! Jack was finally back in the picture, ready to visit the yarn, I mean, llamas and alpacas. There were signs for each animal on the premises, and the kids took turns reading from them so we could educate ourselves more on the creatures we were visiting. So the trip wasn't just for funsies - we were there as part of our Sweet Pea Academy homeschooling endeavor. Fuzzy buns!!!
A lot of the animals were inside their habitats - some more visible than others, like this tortoise, here - in the high heat of the day. I was glad to see that they were well taken care of in that regard, with nobody left outside to cook!
Next, we entered the pygmy goat pen for some good petting fun and nuzzles from the wee ones. Even Daddy got in a good "scritch," as he calls them, or two. Eventually, it was clear they were either too hot or had had enough of us, so we took our leave of the goat pen. Here, I finally caught a glimpse of the half-shaded, half-sunned red kangaroo. Nap time at the zoo?
Oink. The American bison was also clearly in the middle of shedding season. All that fur must get so uncomfortable in the heat of late Spring and Summer! The raven was surprisingly friendly and interested in getting an up-close peep of us. The owl, meanwhile, kept its distance, blinking at us from the shadows. I finally managed to catch it mid-blink. Sleepy bobcat. The binturong of Asia, too, kept its distance during what was clearly sleepytime in much of Babby Farms. Asian Spotted Leopard Cat Caracal Cat After we finished visiting all the critters in the main outer area at that back, we headed inside the "Rainforest" section and were immediately greeted by this parrot. Or red macaw. Honestly, I don't know what it was other than beautiful. Polly wanna cracker?Years ago, I crocheted a replica of my friend Cyndi's late African Gray parrot as a gift for one of her sons, so Chloë was happy to point out this one, alive and well.See? Next, we visited with the spider monkey and the capuchin monkey for a while, just because these primates were so darn entertaining. The staffer was, as well! Rob and I had seen several of these spider monkeys up close and personal during our visit to Mexico in 2014. What fun we had with them! Hey, sweetie! This girl was quite a ham!
Sophia reached in to "pet" the African spurred tortoise. I was thankful that Babby Farms placed plenty of hand sanitizer strategically throughout the property.
Several of my friends have had bearded dragons, which apparently make pretty cool pets if you treat them well.
Likewise, we have seen many huge green iguanas throughout South Florida and the Keys. Still, pretty cool to see one again way up here in Idaho.
Russian tortoise
Sloth doing what sloths do best: resting. Hee!
We kept our distance from the African Crested porcupine, and likewise, it did the same.  Patagonian Cavy
Sorry, I have no more crackers... Australia's Laughing Kookaburra was majestic up there on its perch. We caught a quick glimpse of the North American porcupine, but not much more than that at the time.Red-Ruffed Lemur time!  The Ring-Tailed Lemur took his leave of us then, but we'll see it later. I think.
The kinkajou popped down for a few moments to wave, "Hi!" Probably the best part of the trip, for me, was our extensive chat with Samantha and her counterpart, Hailey (not shown), about all the inner workings surrounding Babby Farms. Rob and I later agreed that it appeared the animals were well cared for, healthy, and happy in their Babby Farms home. I'm sorry, you, but I don't know who you are, because I missed photographing your sign. I'm sorry. But I like your toys! Oh, hey! Look who came back to say hello!
The ring-tailed lemur was our last critter of the day, before we headed back up front to nicely-merchandised gift shop to give our thanks for the visit. We really enjoyed it and hope to come back one day soon.
So if you're ever in the Boise, Idaho area, please consider a visit out to Babby Farms. You'll be glad you did!Thanks to By Claudya for hosting Sundays in My City! Now go back to see her and visit some of the other participants! Fin.

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