On June 17th, 2009, we (Adayah, my one-old daughter, Nayezca, my 5 year-old daughter, and I) packed the van, took a potpourri of ironic left-wing baby snacks, and headed to Tilden Park. Its amazing how long it can take to get there when you're trying to time it perfectly with when the baby needs to nap and when the cows will want to eat celery. For some reason, I had it in my head that going to the Little Farm at opening time in the middle of the week would be calm. That dream was shattered when we pulled into our parking space at the far end of the parking lot, right next to the chain-smoking 50 year-olds setting up a volleyball net (true story!). I was disappointed that the East Bay Regional Park District website didn't inform me that today was opiate recovery day at the park (and, just for the record, I have nothing against people recovering from opiate addictions. It was just really weird). The plan was to spend some quality time with the pigs and then go to the merry-go-round in the park and straddle some plastic horses. Good times, indeed.
(I'm including both of these places into one adventure)
1. Fun for baby. And in this case, a 5 year-old.
There's something very, very cool about watching your baby learn to make farm animal sounds. That was not a sarcastic sentence. Neither was that one. Anyway, I can't describe it very well, but I always feel a deep, paternal joy when I watch Adayah imitate me after I belt out a chicken's "bawk-bawk-bawk" or a cow's "mooooo" (I can already tell that its moments like these that are precious and I’ll look back on them with nostalgic eyes as my 15 year old daughter asks me if its ok to stay out until midnight). So, it was game time. Time to implement all our practice at home. We approached the pigpen, and peered into a pretty revolting scene. Fortunately, Adayah didn't realize that one of the pigs had a dingle berry the size of a grapefruit hanging out of its anus. Unfortunately, Nayezca did realize. Nevertheless, we persevered, and both girls seemed to enjoy watching pigs eat lettuce floating on top of the pool of water in the pen. Adayah didn't utter an "oink" but seemed content nevertheless.
We continued onto a large pen that had a random assortment of fowl pecking each other and eating lettuce off the ground. This was exciting. Adayah had just perfected the "bawk-bawk" a few days ago, so I was anxious to watch her belt out some chicken noises. However, the Little Farm threw her off by having turkeys, ducks, and geese in the same pen. Give me a break, since when do chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys all hang out together? She was disappointed, and failed to provide a decent "bawk-bawk". Lame.
Upward and onward to the goats. These creatures were sticking their heads, half their necks, and a whole leg out of the pen to get food from the group of kids on a field trip. Nayezca loved this part, something about the goats’ aggression. Adayah was reluctant, something about a pair of beady yellow eyes too close.
We culminated our animal experience with the heifers, and both kids enjoyed watching them devour celery and lettuce. Adayah wasn’t too into a 12-inch tongue approaching her, and was reluctant to give the cows food, even with some help. She didn’t complain, nor was she overly excited about feeding them, but did enjoy petting the cow and listening to it “moo”.
Both girls enjoyed the merry-go-round, our final stop in this adventure, and I was pleasantly surprised that Adayah didn’t get scared, throw a fit, get nauseous, or pick a fight with another baby. She rejected the belt you typically have to put around their waist, and even screamed at the nasty young woman running the merry-go-round who looked like she had one too many Nyquil the night before. Good girl.
Overall score: 6. Nothing too exciting, but nothing bad either.
2. Fun for Dad. Where to begin? Besides dealing with the throngs of day camps and preschools, and concern about swine flu (more on that later), it was a blast. I grew up a city slicker, so going to a fake farm on the edge of the city is about as country as I get. The pigs were fascinating, in the same that watching reruns of Cops is fascinating. I felt like Homer Simpson, as the three little pigs bouncing around turned to three pieces of bacon. Ditto for the turkeys. In fact, the whole chicken/turkey/goose/duck pen seemed like a great place to raise Turduckens, and it reminded me that for the cost of a nice dinner, I could be having a fowl (foul?) Turducken orgy (http://www.cajungrocer.com/fresh-foods-holiday-dishes-turducken-c-1_15_24.html?source=google&gclid=CJWJiYWOlJsCFQ6jagodzRnPoQ). I was similarly amazed at the cows, not at fact that they were walking pieces of asada, but at their sheer size. These aren’t particularly gigantic cows, but they were still gigantic. Very cool. I’d happily revisit the Little Farm anytime soon (or would I? More information on that to come).
The merry-go-round, on the other hand, is another story. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I get on another merry-go-round for any reason beyond saving my marriage. I’m not exactly sure why its taken me 28 years to figure out I hate merry-go-rounds. Nevertheless, I’d like to thank our corporate sponsor, Vertigo and its subsidiary Nausea, for the memorable trip to the merry-go-round.
Let’s not get it twisted; this was an incredibly trying experience. Nayezca was fine, she understands things like balance and gravity. Adayah, on the other hand, was sitting on one of the largest horses, refusing to wear the seatbelt, and moving counter-clockwise at about 75 mph. I stood next to her, both hands on deck at all times, praying I would make it to the end of the ride without keeling over (and, thus, leaving my baby at the mercy of the circular monster). Nayezca was thrilled, Adayah was happy, and I was miserable. As I said before, see you at the oral-surgeon before I see you at the merry-go-round.
Overall Score: 6. A 10 for the animals, a 0 for the merry-go-round (fine, a .25, it’s always nice to see your children enjoying themselves), averages exactly to 6, right?
3. Cash Money. The farm is free and free is good. We did have to buy $3 worth of lettuce and celery at Safeway. The merry-go-round is the kid version of a Ponzi scheme. 7 tickets for $10, and those cold-hearted teenagers even made the baby have a ticket. How is it that airlines, the same folks who charge you for everything, will let a baby 0-2 years old fly to Taiwan for free, yet the merry-go-round makes your baby provide a ticket? Did I mention the ride on the merry-go-round was 3 minutes? So, basically, for 15 minutes of “fun” at the merry-go-round (including breaks, snacks, etc.), we paid $10. Just to look at the merry-go-round through a different lens, what would you say if you wanted to take your kids to the merry-go-round and they told you, “Sure, come on, its only $40 an hour!”?
Overall Score: 3. Sorry Little Farm, you got killed by the merry-go-round.
4. Transportation. Easy accessible by car, and apparently the AC Transit #67 goes to both places (although I didn’t see any buses). There were lots of winding, hilly roads to get there, which could be problematic if you have carsick prone kids or if you just got off the merry-go-round. Parking at the Little Farm was tough due to the convergence of throngs of kids and recovering drug-users. Parking at the merry-go-round was a breeze, only one other car in the lot (this really should have told me something)…
Overall Score: 7. All things considered, not too bad.
5. Morality Content. What sort of morals could a merry-go-round teach? Besides showing your children you can avoid a temper-tantrum when you hate life, absolutely nothing. We’ll focus on the Little Farm for this part.
In an age where Michael Pollan, farmers markets, and slow food are the rage, what better way to inject sustainability and responsible food ethics into your children than to expose them to the animals themselves? Personally, I’d have loved it if they had a slaughterhouse and 5 star restaurant on sight and we could really experience what it means to see Snow Drop the cow become filet mignon, but one might argue that could traumatize kids. But, seriously, it’s a good experience for kids to see what they eat (or see what they don’t eat) and to have some connection to our society’s agrarian roots. Furthermore, I’m a firm believer that animals are to be treated with respect (I know there are tons of bacon jokes in this entry, but that’s a serious statement), and the Little Farm seems to respect their creatures, even though they permit kids to make the animals go on an eight-hour celery and lettuce bender. Its important for kids growing up in a metropolis to get exposure to farm animals. Right?
Overall Score: 8. Hey, Thomas Jefferson would be thrilled.
6. The “X” Factor. You know what scares the hell out of me? We take a beautiful trip to the Little Farm, idyllic pigs eating idyllic pieces of romaine lettuce, ganders gracefully mounting geese, and the kids are ecstatic. And then we arrive home and the baby comes down with a fever of 104 that lasts for four days, often spiking at 105. We take some non-idyllic trips to the emergency room and learn about an exciting disease called Kawasaki Disease. Sound too good to be hypothetical?
After the first trip Adayah took the little farm, in late May, she came down with a terrible virus that ravaged her poor little body, ravaged me and my wife’s nerves, and gave me a tremendous amount of sympathy and heartache for parents whose children have serious diseases or conditions. So, in a similar way that I didn’t drink tequila between the ages of 17 and 23 because of one terrible night, I also have a considerable amount of PTSD associated with the Little Farm. Instead of waiting until Adayah was 7 to take her back to the Little Farm, I trusted that her sickness and the Little Farm were unrelated events. So, as we wrapped up the day and Adayah had clear snot coming out of her nose, I was all but convinced she had a newer, more deadly version of the swine flu.
Overall Score: -5 points. 2 for 2 on sickness at the Little Farm? The next time I see one of those pigs I hope it’s crispy, next to some scrambled eggs and sourdough toast.
Final Score: 25.
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