We are back from our Taichung holiday . . . we had a wonderful time.

One thing we had intended on doing was going back to a certain horse ranch so Kaye and her friend Shen-Shen could go riding. It’s a wonderful place and we usually have a great time. When we got there, we found a large sign on the gate proclaiming it closed for the day. Disappointment all around.

However, we decided to drive up the rode and see if there were other opportunities for us around the bend . . . we ended up going to another ranch which turned out to be a wonderful experience indeed as they have quite the exotic menagerie of animals in a sort of petting zoo type setup.

Anyone who knows my daugher Kaye and my wife Lorraine knows they are beyond crazy about animals. Kaye pretty much picked up, pet, carried, kissed, or cuddled any animal she could. I suspect the only thing she didn’t pet at this place was a crocodile. Some of the things Lorraine balked at touching Kaye lept to toward the opportunity to hold.

Needless to say, she had a rather wonderful time. This post is a bit of a picture flood of Kaye and her animal friends, go to the gallery for much much more. Some of the exotic animal photos came out beautifully.

The ostriches were quite aggressive. One had managed to get our of the pens and was following the girls around, looking for a handout. Here, Kaye is feeding one of them . . . no hand feeding with these big birds . . . it pecked pretty hard.

A real working horse. He is devastatingly beautiful in person. The photo doesn’t do him justice.

The raccoons were very docile. This fellow was no trouble at all holding him. There were a couple others that are on the much larger side of things. The heat was really getting to them though. Kaye was thrilled to see them and then when one of the workers asked her if she would like to hold one, her thrill factor shot way up. This little bandit may have solen her heart . . . well, until the next animal came along.

The girl with no fear . . . Kaye was very happy to hold this snake. Notice Lorraine’s expression in the background . . . check the full gallery for much less calm and a bit more disgusted expressions on her face as her daughter happily drapes this creepy crawly around her shoulders.

Cute little hedgehog . . . enough said.

The tortoise is over one hundred years old.

Yes, it’s real. Yes, it’s very looooong. Yes, it’s skin is very cold to the touch. Yes, it’s very very heavy. Yes, my daugher will pretty much cuddle anything with a heartbeat.

The horses and ponies were very gentle. This fellow is named Rachel (yes, it’s a male named Rachel . . . we do live in Taiwan so strange name combinations are not that unusual). He is trained to lift up a leg and beg when you say a key phrase. He also kisses on command. Big wet slobbery kisses.

Wannabe Wallaby. There’s a passle of wallabies at the ranch.

This guy was very friendly, particularly if you had food on your person. The alpaca was very gentle and the fur was very nice to the touch.

The larger horses were in use by club members (you can purchase a membership at the ranch so you can ride anytime you like – not a good deal for us as we live in Taipei but for folks in and around Taichung it is probably a nice deal for those who love horseriding). Kaye was happy with this miniature altenative as she thougt the trade-off of seeing the rest of the menagerie a perfectly reasonable exchange.

This water buffalo actually looks a LOT smaller in this photo than he is.

When I was taking a series of photos of this guy alone on a wire, he kept saying “Hello” to me. Kaye did a series of shots of hm with his twin that were extreme closups to the point that you can see the beak of one of them touching the lens of the camera.

Some animals have intoxicating pheromones.

See the rest of the gallery here. More animal shots as well as other parts of our trip when we meet up with our friend Brian Oscar and his daughter Susan.

All the best,
Brian