Yoni at the pumpkin patch

We tried to find a nice pumpkin patch outside Chicago. There were a number of enthusiastic endorsements from a Hyde Park parents' listserv, however it appears that one's idea of what a pumpkin patch should be depends on how urban his/her upbringing was. Regardless, we still had some very nice photo ops, even if our pumpkin patch had greenhouses instead of a swath of green farm land, and even if we were surrounded by subdivisions instead of beautiful countryside. It is sort of amazing how commercialized the "country" experience has become (at least around Chicago). Perhaps if we were in one of the "real" parts of the United States it would have been easy to find a nice orange patch. Luckily Yoni didn't notice the difference, and would have thought our interest in these large orange vegetables would have been strange in either case.




Below is a Yoni-sized squash.


They even found a way to "baby-size" the pumpkins and put them into a big bin.


The week before our adventure to the suburban pumpkin patch, the Chicago Parks department created a pumpkin patch just around the corner from us in Nichols Park (and is what inspired us to go find a "real" pumpkin patch). In addition to having a bunch of pumpkins in a pen (silly urban folk must think pumpkins are animals), they also had a petting zoo, pony rides, concessions, and music (although it was incongruous with its surroundings; some sort of R&B hip-hoppy thing; lest we forget where we are, perhaps).

By far, the petting zoo was the highlight. Yoni got to see a porcupine (I got to pet it).

The porcupine used to chew tobacco, and his new owner can't afford to whiten his teeth.


There were also a couple of very nice sheep, goats, and a turkey. I think if anyone ever spent much time with a real turkey, they wouldn't want to eat it, and not for the reason you might think. Keep going and you'll see what I mean.


Yoni got to pet a Chinchilla. This particular one was the chillest chinchilla I ever met (it was my second). I don't know if it was downing brown bettys or what, but this was one chillaxin furry dude, and really, really soft.



Yoni also got to say hi to his first snake; a python.

Yoni obviously has no sense of self preservation.

O.k., remember the turkey comments? Look at this guy. Perhaps this is just an ugly turkey, but for the love of god, if they all look like this it amazes me that they haven't gone extinct. See that brownish area behind his eye? That's his ear with bristly hair growing out of it. Poor Tom has no Tilly to pluck his ear hair.

Conversely, this guy looks like someone unsuccessfully try to pull out his whiskers.

That's a hedgehog down there.

And this one didn't come from the petting zoo, although her name is Mousy; she came from Boulder and she should move to Chicago!

Nay sayer

The video below is from a little while ago; August 10th to be exact. I finally downloaded it to the computer and had a chance to view it again and am now sad that I didn't post it sooner. The video shows a couple of Yoni's talents. The first is his "nay" saying. Before he ever said nay, he started to crinkle up his nose, making him look like he has a little attitude. Shortly after that discovery the nay saying began. The other talent demonstrated about 1/2 way through the video is what I call Yoni's Teradactyl cry; you'll understand when you hear it. Interestingly, after about a week of practicing these skills Yoni abruptly stopped doing them. They resurfaced about a week ago. The Teradactyl cry is providing us with our first real test of recognizing the dichotomy between us thinking that pretty much anything Yoni does is cute (except pulling chest hair) and recognizing that others find his vocalizations somewhat disturbing. I hope that the smiles that occasionally cross my face while I shush Yoni don't frustrate those who are incurring hearing loss. I would also like to note that we aren't annoyingly imploring Yoni to perform his little tricks all day long.