Today, I crossed paths with a critter that I’ve wanted to meet most of my life but never actually dreamed I would. I could just show you a photo on Instagram or Facebook, but I’d rather make a blog post about all the other intentional critter crossings I’ve had throughout my lifetime before we get to today’s excitement because it’s more fun that way.
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| Sittin’ astride Topsy |
This is my maternal grandfather supervising a “ride” on Topsy the pony when I was no more than three years old. I remember being terrified to sit on Santa’s lap at that age, but no fear of the ponies! My childhood was filled with pets of our own, friends and family with pets and farm animals, and an uncle who always had the coolest creatures at his country place. On a trip to Florida at the age of 10, my grandparents took my brother and I to a local amusement park where we rode an elephant. It’s strange that I don’t have photos of that as my grandma was quite the shutterbug. I do have a picture of the elephant I rode when I was an exchange student to Sri Lanka in 1982.
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| In the city square of Kandy, Sri Lanka |
And I have a photo of when a group of my Sri Lankan family and I took a trip to Sigiriya Rock and the Dambulla Cave Temples.
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| Momma and baby monkey take a treat. |
I know now that these probably aren’t the best things for the animals, but I didn’t know that then, especially since I was told the locals took very good care of their elephants, and vendors sold the monkey food right there at Dambulla encouraging visitors to engage. I was a 16-year-old animal nut with a few rupees in my pocket, what can I say?
In a previous post, Fort Worden State Park, I talked about how I have no qualms about doing things that are more geared to children when it comes to animals, and I will happily sign up and line up to participate. Such was the case at the New Orleans Zoo in 1987. There was a tunnel underneath the prairie dog enclosure for kids to crawl through and into the bubble porthole thingie.
I was small enough to fit, so I did. I’m standing up straight in that dome, for the record, and those are real prairie dogs that incredibly posed just as the photo was taken.
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| Tanya the Leopard, 1989 |
This one I regret a little bit. Tanya was a leopard that I saw at the town mall in Grand Forks, ND, and I was a sucker who paid for the chance to touch her and have this photo taken. She looks happy, and maybe she was, how can we really say if all she ever knew was people and reliable food and shelter? But I cringe a little inside when I think of “mall” and “leopard” in the same sentence. But, oooohhhh, that fur. For the next several years, my life was mostly devoid of animals, sadly. Then I — or the we that you, my blog readers, know as us — had animals of our own and ventured out into nature a lot more than I had before I was part of us.
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| Gray Jay aka Camp Robber in Santa Fe NM |
Some folks will give you the side-eye if they see you feeding or enticing these birds, but I won’t be one of them. Since the ornithologists of the world still can’t come to an agreement about whether or not humans should be feeding birds, I’m not gonna sweat this one. Just over a year ago, I hit the trifecta of doing kid things, feeding, and riding animals. On our last trip to Palm Springs while visiting the Living Desert Zoo, I lined up and paid up to feed the giraffes (rough purple tongues!)
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| and ride a camel (very bumpy!) |
I am conflicted about zoos, both loving and hating them, appreciating and being depressed by them all at the same time. They are my kryptonite, though, because they are guaranteed critter-spotting places. And speaking of that, we arrive at today.
A looooong time ago I read this book titled Capyboppy, and I learned about a wonderful critter called a capybara, and then I wanted one. You can actually get them as pets, but it was never something I could seriously entertain. For all the rest of my life, I’ve wished to be able to at least pet one. Amazingly, I happened upon a friend's FB post of her son petting one, and learned that there was a petting farm right near where I lived. Plans were made immediately to go there as soon as I could. I invited a few friends along because they had children, and I needed the "cover."
I knew from reading their website that if you were quiet and just sat down, they were very likely to come lay on you.
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| Sitting still was haaaaard. |
Here comes Hector!
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| He climbed right on! |
They sell cups of fresh veggies, and one of my friends got one but was getting swarmed by all the animals and her little girl also wanted to eat the carrots, so she handed the cup to me. This got Consuela’s attention, and when they’d eaten all the veggies, Consuela, who is bigger, pushed Hector off my lap and took his place. Hector peed on my pant cuff as he was leaving, but I don’t think it was out of spite, I think he just had to go.
Soon I was pinned down by even more friends. The babiest of baby goats climbed up between Consuela and me to cuddle, a cavy snuggled next to my leg with its legs over mine at one point, and that calf kept nudging my hand to pet it. The baby goats and cavies seemed to realize I was trapped, and used it to their advantage to try to eat my shoelaces.
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| Hector before he was chased off. |
There were lots of other critters there, and I did check them all out, though I had to make Consuela move and hand over the goat baby to a woman who was still holding it when we left (purposely hanging onto or picking up the animals isn’t allowed, by the way). The cavies were very cute and soft, and who doesn’t like baby goats? But the capybaras were the stars of the show for me.
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| I mean, come on. |