Last Sunday, the sun came out and the temperature jumped up to about 60 degrees, and nearly everyone on this little island emerged from their homes, blinking in the brightness like baby moles, and headed outside for the afternoon. We were no different. Our initial plans for a trip to the London zoo got derailed due to practicalities like naptime and whatnot, so instead we decided Nyan would get in touch with his Iowan roots and headed half an hour north of London, to a place called Lea Valley Park Farms.

It’s tucked into a lovely little valley, and it’s apparently a working farm of some sort, but they have quite a spread that’s open to visitors, with trails, a cafe or two, several areas of games and activities, and animals. Lots of animals. We saw pigs, sheep, goats, donkeys, llamas, rabbits, turkeys, tortoises, chickens, cows, meerkats, guinea pigs, ponies, even an entire sled’s worth of Siberian huskies. Our boy was enthralled by some of the animals, a little freaked out by others (goats, of course, stink to high heaven, and Nyan was not impressed). Here’s a bunch of photos of the lad – expertly shot by Mommy, who was manning the camera (click on any picture to make it bigger and start a nice slideshow):

And some videos. A short one and a longer one of Nyan on the trail – inspecting rocks, falling down, and struttin’ his stuff:

And finally, the creme de la creme: Nyan Thomas riding a tractor. With a little help from Daddy: