Animal Farm

Hello everyone. Josh here. I'm starting to think Michael's chances of being an only child are growing by the day. Allow me to tell you about our encounter with farm animals today - you will see why I say this. Fortunately, Janet was taking pictures the whole time. Allow me to present these pictures as evidence.

Situation #1:
Michael sees a rabbit for the first time. As you can see his father is introducing him to the animal, while maintaining a comfortable 1-2 arms length distance from the cage. Also, note that I am paying attention to what my is doing (after all, he is one year old), and close enough to react should he decide to lunge forward. You will see further evidence of this in the picture where Michael is looking at some chickens. We saw cows, goats, sheep...all without incident.

















Situation #2:
After 10 minutes of seeing all animals with his father, Michael's mother then decides that she needs to be involved. What later transpires is the exact reason that I felt the need to oversee the animal introductions in the first place. About 10 seconds later, as you can see in the third picture, which I call "exhibit A", Michael was given free reign with the animals. He immediately puts his mouth on the filthy, potentially disease ridden bars of the cage. What was his mother doing at the time, you might ask? Well just check out the next picture, where Katie is making friends with some nearby strangers. At least Michael didn't getting head butted by any of the goats while this was going on.
















OK, maybe I'm a little obessive compulsive. But those animals were rolling around in their own poop. And the sheep he was trying to pet had it's nose in the goat's butt most of the time as you can see in the picture. Katie said after we left that, "I guess he's not going to be a farmboy". I think we all knew that when he was born. He has a better chance of being an astronaut.

Katie's brother's have dubbed me as Rueben Feffer from the movie "Along Came Polly". At first I took offense to that comparison, but now I embrace it. In the movie Rueben works for a life insurance company and he assesses risk for a living. In one scene, he talks about the risks associated with eating beer nuts in a bar, given the fact that so few people wash their hands and how long the nuts sit there. I couldn't find that quote, but here's one from the movie that's just as good. You've got to love that last sentence.

Reuben Feffer: I know that I have a .013% chance of being hit by a car on my way home. Or a one in 46,000 chance of falling through a subway grate. So I try to manage that risk by avoiding danger and having a plan and knowing what my next move is.