Amy seems to have gotten over her fear of farm animals. The fear was relatively sensible She made the logical assessment that cows, goats, sheep and the like are quite a bit bigger than her and, judging by the frenzied way they try to get at the bags of feed at the community farm, they want to gobble her up. We went to Temple Newsam on Tuesday and the sight of the newborn lambs and piglets was enough for her to overcome her anxieties. She was still a little scared of the adult pigs, but she fed the goats, sheep and even cows. She was so proud of her feeding technique that she was still talking about it on Wednesday night (“put your hand flat mummyâ€).
We are fairly regular visitors to Temple Newsam. We’ve been favouring Cannon Hall recently, but Kerry and I have just got a card that allows us free entry so I think our allegiance will switch back. Despite having been a fair number of times, this time I came across a room I hadn’t seen before. This isn’t really all that surprising – about half of the farm is dedicated to rare breeds and the other is a sort of museum of agricultural equipment. As interesting as the development from horse drawn to mechanical ploughs probably is, I tend to just want to scratch the pig’s backs or avoid getting my shirt eaten by the goats. This previously unexplored room lured me in by a big sign stating “Chicksâ€. In actual fact this was inaccurate as the room actually contained ducklings and poults (baby turkeys, I had to look that up). I contacted the advertising standards authority about this disinformation but they have so far appeared strangely uninterested.
The ducklings were very appealing as ducklings generally are, but the thing that really impressed me was that the whole room was a huge dovecote. I took a picture on my phone but it doesn’t really do it justice. I never realised how important pigeons must have been to the food supply of these stately homes. I certainly wouldn’t want to eat one but I guess I’m just used to the urban variety.
