lompoc: part two of the great weekend.

Besides living minutes away from a barn full of horses, Chloe's Aunt Debbie has quite a menagerie at home.  A chameleon, two snuggly golden retrievers, a walking stick, two rats, and a beta.  Chloe wanted to hold and feed each of them, making the rounds several times, "let's go see the rats, let's go hold the chameleon." The colors on the chameleon are insane. 

The shapes on his head would make the most beautiful mosaic tile, and I want upholstery fabric to in the color and pattern of his body. My girl Kelly Wearstler has the means to fabricate those things, I just ask for a couple yards of each in return.

Since we discovered Sanford wine, somewhere around 1998, we have been talking about visiting the winery.  Being that we were only an hour way from Lompoc, we decided to go.  Our hosts made us a lovely breakfast of french toast with bacon, (Chloe's favorite) and we were off.  The drive was gorgeous, plenty of monarch butterflies fluttering by.

Sure, I felt a little odd taking my five-year-old to a winery, but it was our one destination, and the beauty of the land was not lost on her.  Plus, she is a well-behaved little lady.

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  We stopped at this little petting zoo on Santa Rosa Road on our way back towards Buellton.  The woman there has rescued all these animals, and she personally introduced us to nearly every one.
My girl is fearless when meeting animals, just walks right on up to them, it is crazy to watch.  I was worried the emu was going to peck her head, but instead of putting my overly-cautious self on her, I put the camera to my face.

This turkey was sweet, and quite the greeter.  He marched, err, more like waddled like a pregnant woman, right up to us to say hello.  We all pet him and felt his "brain," as Chloe called it, it was warm and soft.  He was quite a creature, and he may very well have changed our menu for November.  I didn't know a turkey could have such a personality. He followed us around, a lovely host.

There were alpacas and donkeys, pot belly pigs Stacy and Tracy, bunnies, ducks, geese, chickens, roosters, Cowboy the cow, goats Hansel and Gretel, an emu, peacocks, and a few horses.  Chloe and I fell in love with Apache, a retired police horse from Riverside.  Geoff got the backgrounds on everybody while Chloe and I loved everyone up.  We wanted to bring Apache home with us.

I may have to make a blurb book of these images because that was a darn good weekend.  Here's to more amazing weekends!