Summer Adventures: Leesburg Petting Zoo

Last week our pick for a play date was the local animal petting zoo over by our old house in Leesburg. Our family goes every year for Pumpkinville but none of the other girls had been.

We arrived, meeting the girls and other kiddos in the parking lot. It was HOT! And when I say hot I mean frying in a pan like bacon hot. Sizzling. Almost unbearable. But we braved it anyway.

This particular day they had a coupon for a few dollars off if your child drew a picture of their favorite animal. Mason colored some squiggles on the sheet of paper and said it was a whale. I thought it was quite creative and am kicking myself for not having snapped a photo of it. Shame on me, Mrs. Photographer. Oh well.

Anyway the kids ticket came with a cone of food. We've never attempted to feed the animals before. At the time I thought maybe it was because of the cost or that we weren't sure if Mason would enjoy it. However he loved it.

Kept telling me that it tickled and come back for more.

Thought it was hysterical that the donkey and other animals were trying to eat the cone. Laughing that hysterical laugh of his and me snapping away. We eventually ran out of food and Mason wanted more. Knowing how much fun it looked I went and bought a cup of the food (it was a better deal than plunking in quarters for refills).

At some point, I think it was my brilliant idea, we decided to head to the contact area. The open space where animals are roaming free and you can pet and feed them. We've experienced this before and I must state that all previous encounters were incident free because of the story I am about to tell you.

Trying to get in was a bit of a pickle. Seeing as we were like the ONLY people there due to the horrendous heat, the animals flocked to us. This made it extremely difficult to get into the open space without letting free a few animals. I braved the swarm, with Sophie on my hip and snuck in, then took the food from Mason. My plan was to lure the animals to us so that everyone else could get in. The first part worked like a charm. The second, not so well. The animals did follow and invited all their friends till Sophie and I were surrounded by goats and a llama. Well they were impatient for me to feed them and started to jump on me. Yes I said JUMP ON ME. That's when I yelled, "HELP!" to anyone who could hear. The others seeing this, laughed and I'm sure said to themselves, girl is crazy if she thinks we are going in their now. So in my attempt to free Sophie and I of the madness I started flinging the food in hopes they would chase after it. In my flinging I noticed a little baby goat off to the side. Aw, I bet he's hungry. I thought to myself and headed in his direction. Bent down to give him some food from the cup and SLAM! Out of nowhere this other, bigger goat, came charging and rammed the poor baby goat causing him to hurl out of the way and the remaining food to go flying. It was this point that I said out loud to myself, "time to go." And with that I fled the area as best as possible as to not let free any more animals. Phew! Um, yeah, never doing that again. Now I think I know why we never attempted to feed the animals before. My poor son, screaming in fear at the sight of his mother being attacked by goats. I'm sure that will haunt him for life now. Gee, way to go Rachel. Perfect mothering skills right there. Let me tell you.

We tried to wait around for the pony rides I bought the kids but it was too darn hot and we all were wasting away. So back into the car and off to my house for some much needed A/C, yummy BBQ sandwhiches and mac-n-cheese.

It was an adventurous day. Maybe next time our visit won't be so traumatic or so blazing hot. One can always hope.