Encore

Category: , By Christian





Elli was so thrilled that I blogged about her last week that she aksed me to share with you are weekend fieldtrip. We just finished up a classic Kansas "Second Winter" last week, which is where you have to suffer through two weeks of brutal cold, following a period of warmth that could have been misconstrued as the beginning of spring. I think we are finally to actual spring now, so we celebrated by hanging out at a local petting zoo. Nothing says "Spring" like going to visit your favorite over-fed domesticated barnyard animals.




Judging by her reactions and attention span, Elli was a huge fan of the various poultries and the baby goats. I was not as thrilled with the goats as she was, because I caught one of them nibbling on my shorts. I was just glad I caught the little bugger in the act, because had he been able to take a huge chunk out of my shorts I would have been mightily embarrassed to have had a huge hole exposing my bum. You never can trust those goats. Trixy goats.




I was a little disappointed that Elli wasn't more enamoured with the cows. I, for one, am a large proponent of the cow. One of my favorite campy songs of all time happens to be the cult classic "Cows With Guns" by Dana Lyons. There is just something about the lumbering bovine that melts my heart. Even thinking back to my honeymoon, one of the highlights was when we visitied the Tillimok County Fair. Have you ever seen the size of the udders on a blue ribbon dairy cow? Unbelieveable. Stacy and I still reminisce about it today with a tinge of amazement in our voices.




More trips to the petting zoo are definately on the horizon for our family. It's a great way to help Elli fall in love with God's creation, and thus develop good habits of Earth stewardship. That whole respecting and loving the Earth thing is almost like a spiritual discipline in our house. I read an article once in Newsweek that made a good point concerning strategies in raising green kiddos. The lady who wrote it talked about how the best course of action is to help your kids fall in love with creation, and not to overburden them with the doomsday scenarios of global warming. As they grow to enjoy the outdoors and connect with animals and (my addition) see the Earth as a wonderfully creative gift from God, then they will be more likely to get joy out of taking care of the Earth.




Apparently, helping your child fall in love with creation is a far more productive solution than too scream "DO YOU WANT ALL OF THE PINGUINS IN ANTARTICA TO DIE!?!?!?!?!" when your child forgets to turn off her bedroom light. Who knew?




Fair Dinkum




 

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