Fun at the farm with falcons

One of the advantages of having children is that one can pursue one's broken and abandoned dreams through them, pushing them to succeed in the arena of one's greatest failure, and sending them blindly down paths that one was too timid to take in one's own youth.

For example, Sarah and I have always wanted to have a goat farm, but for one reason or another, it has just never worked out. Could this be the reason that our weekend excursions with Liam are so often agro-centric?

This past weekend was no exception, as we ventured out to Krewelshof which, aside from being a working goat farm, boasts the #1 restaurant in Lohmar (out of 4).

Behold the tower of gourds:

For some reason Liam saw the need to poke each of the pumpkins that had rolled off of the pyramid.

Ohhhhhkaaaaaaay....

Luckily we got there in time to see the spectacle of this animatronic, pneumatic creepy music playing thing, before it was locked up for the day:

I don't know if Flight of the Bumblebee was ever meant to be played on the accordion and tuba, but these ladies went to town, and things got pretty avant garde in a few places.

They had rabbit hutches, which Liam enjoyed, and where he met a girl that spoke his own language:

Ok, enough of the good, clean fun. Now to return to the dark side of this post: Falconry.

Just a man and his bird. His bird that is a merciless killer. No offense to conventional hunters, but the best you can say in your case is that you had more or less good aim. But ask a falconer how he got his dinner: "I told a bird to do it, and it did what I said". Now that is bad-ass.

Alas, I never had the chance to see if I have what it takes to be a falconer, but perhaps my son....

Conveniently, on the very day we visited Krewelshof, there was a falconer in residence. Imagine that.

Unfortunately, the guy gave a first impression that did not exactly inspire confidence:

I did learn one valuable lesson from him. Do NOT stand directly behind a nervous eagle. Trust me.

Things got a little better when he got the falcon out:

For some reason he encouraged the children to smell the falcon, I did not partake. Liam was also a little too small to put on the glove and hold it, but there is always next time. At first he seemed interested:

But in the end, he seemed generally non-plussed:

Never mind, he's still getting a falcon gauntlet for his next birthday.