Animal Affair at the Library -- Guest Post by J

For family night this week, instead of the usual puppet show or magician, the Seekonk library brought in animal babies for an "animal affair". There were ducklings, chicks, bunnies, a piglet, and some goat kids.

Aiden was not as enthusiastic about picking up and petting the ducklings or bunnies as I was. He was more interested in another kid's Cars 2 T-shirt. "Hey, that's Francesco Bernoulli. He's a race car. Oh, and that's Grem, a bad guy."

After having our fill of animal petting, we went inside. While Aiden waited to play Pajama Sam 2 on the computer, he and I built a 4 1/2 foot tall "hotel skyscraper" out of some interlocking blocks.

On our way out, we visited the animals one more time. Now, the scene both times was bordering on chaos. You'd expect that there would be some expert or caretaker in charge of the animals. If there was, she was invisible. Instead, one of the exasperated librarians ineffectively tried to reign in the (human) kids, most of whom should not be allowed near non-human kids. One poor little bunny was dropped twice, though luckily he seemed unhurt. (Librarian to kids: "Don't drop the bunny! Put him down nicely! He's squirming because he doesn't want to be held anymore!")

Thank goodness PETA showed up and shut the event down.
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Here was the newspaper's take:

The Neighborhood Files
Viewfinder: Animal Craze at the Library
A barnyard full of rabbits, chickens, duck and a few others, took up residence adjacent to the Seekonk Library.

Lucky for the library it was just for the evening on June 27, as part of the library's summer program. This is just one of the family activities scheduled to be held at the Seekonk Library this summer. This traveling farm is the creation of farm owner Tonya Dokulil. She has a team of people who take the farm on the road almost every day of the year. She typically does birthday parties along with visiting schools and camps along with the ccasional library.

Dokulil, understands that the animals just like people love attention and the children did enjoy their time playing with the animals. "We hand raise all the animals on Mistletoe Farm in Winchendon, MA," clarified Dokulil. "We provide an opportunity for the children to learn about the animals and how to properly hold them." The children are not only allowed but encouraged to pick up and hold the animals.

Aiden Brennan on the other hand wanted an up close look at the piglet (followup caption to the previous: Katie Morris was a little cautious and decided that over the fence was a safe bet to pet the piglet.)