a little bit about a cat

The other day I took our four children, after a failed attempt to visit the apple orchard, to a refurbished antiques shop, after learning the orchard won't open to the public until August.

On a dirt country road a ways west from our place sits a huge old barn in a field. Numerous outbuildings surround the barn, that has been artistically transformed into the most gorgeous furniture, odds and ends, and art store.



I'll admit it. The boys were nonplussed as it regarded the antiques. Which was nice. Because had they been plussed by them, they probably would have fondled them. And broken them. Leading me to have to pay for them.



Nuggey's sticky fingers did get him into a teeny bit of trouble, though. When I took this photo, I had just told him he couldn't have that trinket and he'd have to put it back. It wasn't the best news he'd heard all day.

As I said, the main barn, chock full of delightfully distressed, breakable finds, didn't interest the children much. I snuck in just long enough to feast my eyes on an old turquoise dresser I just had to have. After we got that safely loaded up in the car, it was off to greener pastures.

Literally.



Beside the barn was this adorable little house. In it, resides a peacock. Who doesn't like clamoring children coming near it. Just ask me how I know that.



The peacock could walk out the door of his house, but the area was fenced in. Thank goodness. Have you ever seen a mad peacock?

I was able to coerce my children to sit in front of the little house for a photograph. In what can only be described as a stupendously magnificent stroke of luck, the resident kitty cat meandered behind me just after I had situated them. I snapped and snapped until the shutter on my camera got overheated.



When you have four children ages four and under, it is not an easy task to get a photograph of them all a) looking at the camera and b) not crying. So the fact they I got one of them all a) not crying and b) looking at a cat that just so happened to be off in the same direction as the camera was definitely good enough for me.

One more photo of just Small Fry and I called it quits with the posed photographs.



We spent the rest of our time there looking at the animals. A giant, overgrown potbellied pig, a donkey, two horses, a sheep and some goats called the penned in fields beyond the antique shop barn home.

I make it no secret on my blog that our 2 year old, MckNugget, has a more than mild obsession with all things animal. The other big kids love animals, too. At first, we just gazed at the farm creatures from our side of the white fence.



"Hey look, guys. A cute little donkey! Or a mule."



"Aw, and see? There's a goat next to him!"



"Hey, goat! What are you doing?"



"Wook, Mama! He's stickin' his head out of the fence!"



Sure enough.



"I wanna pick a flower a give it to the goat!"



Call it a premonition or call it what you will, but at this point I started to wonder how that fence with the wide gaps between the slats actually kept that goat in. Couldn't he just step right out? I dismissed the thought, however, assuming the fence was there to keep the animals in and I'm sure it did its job. Who was I to question it?



The boys grew a bit tired of the goat.



"Wook, Mama! A sheep!"



Little did we know at the time, but while their attentions had shifted to another animal, the goat remained focus. See him surveying the scene?

No sooner did Nuggey pick a flower to start feeding to the sheep, did the goat escape from his fenced in pasture. Indeed, he just stepped right out.



One the children noticed that the goat was on their side of the fence, panic immediately ensued. Ironically enough, MckNugget, the animal lover, was the most freaked out of the bunch.



Dropping their fistfuls of grass and flowers, the three of them began screaming and running away from the goat on the loose.



I'll admit, it kind of freaked me out, too. But not too bad, apparently, since I kept taking photographs of the hullabaloo.



They successfully got away from the runaway goat, Big Mac wearing one of his own flip flops and one of mine. Don't ask.



Upon realizing the goat was relatively harmless and just seemed to want some straw, my Many Small Children ventured back near the creature.



And then Nuggey spotted the kitty cat again.



And, except for the photographic favor it did me earlier, I really didn't like the cat. So we went home.

The end.