On Friday, Gwen went to the CBC Food Bank Day down at Pacific Centre. Apparently they were so thrilled to see a young’un there (um, Aidan) that they gave her a family pass to Maplewood Farm. For what it’s worth, CBC raised over $500,000 for the food bank. But this isn’t a story about that, it’s about the Farm.

So, on Sunday afternoon, we went.  I knew nothing about Maplefood Farm — I didn’t even know it existed. Plus, it was a typical Vancouver winter day: grey and wet, but on the North Shore it was more so. But, we had the passes and it was a good excuse to get out of the house, so we bundled the kid up in rain gear and headed out.

It turns out to be a great place to bring toddlers. It’s a small property, but they have horses, cows, chickens, peafowl, goats, sheep, pigs, and sundry other fauna.

Aidan was suitably impressed with being able to get up close and personal with the paddocked animals, such as the pot-bellied pig:

After seeing some of the penned animals, we went to the rabbit pen. You can actually go into the rabbit pen and touch and feed the dozen or so rabbits that they have. I’m not sure who liked petting the bunnies more: Gwen or Aidan. A big bonus was that he didn’t run away screaming when they hippy-hopped around!

After the rabbits, we went into the big barn where we saw a small troupe of girls doing Irish Dance. Again, this was a good source of entertainment, as you can see:

Following the dancing, we went to see the goats. It seemed like they had two dozen goats in a muddy pasture. Only, these were small goats. And, we were able to go into the pasture and touch the goats! Aidan thought that this was just great!

All in all, it was a really good outing. I was originally skeptical, but Aidan clearly enjoyed seeing all the animals and being able to go up and touch so much of them was quite exciting.

I don’t know how we’ll beat that next weekend!