Museum of West Country Life

On Friday, I went to the Museum of West Country Life near Exmouth in Devon. It's a gigantic place with loads to do. Some of the things I did were:

I went to a falconry display. My favourite bird there was called Coco and she is an English kestrel. That's Coco with me in the photo above. She is one of the fastest flying birds in England. At the falconry display we got to see her flying around a big paddock and every so often she would land on a perching post. One time she almost landed on someone's head! We were also supposed to see a barn owl flying and it had lots of snowy coloured feathers but it wasn't a snowy owl. Anyway, instead of coming out to say hi to the crowd it stayed in its box - I think it was sulking because it was too windy for it to be allowed out the day before!!!!!

I bottle fed a big lamb and an even bigger calf. I had to hang onto the bottles really tight as they were sucking so strongly.

After feeding the lamb and calf we rushed over to the Deer Train which was actually a tractor pulling lots of trailers which we sat in. We drove into the deer/llama/Soay sheep paddock and after driving all around the paddock to look at the different animals we stopped and the driver handed out deer food pellets to us. We fed the red deer, including the white ones! Their tongues felt like sandpaper on my hand and they only have lower teeth, the top jaw is a plate, like a big hard gum.

After that I walked a baby goat on a dog lead. Its name was Archie and it was the laziest one of them all (a goat after my own heart!) All the other little goat kids were happily walking around head butting each other and exploring the farmyard, but every few paces Archie would have a little rest on the job and then I had to try to coax him back up. Have you ever tried getting a sleepy goat kid to walk? It's not easy, I can tell you!

I also went on the adventure playground and into the old fashioned vehicle museum. There were cars, motorbikes, a fire engine and old-fashioned stuff there like a man trap which was banned in 1870 and an old school desk, ice cream cart, Keepers cottage, traditional gypsy wagons, traction engines and heaps more. One of the traction engines was amazingly big. You can see me standing by it in the photo. Traction engines in the old days were powered by steam.

By the end of that day I was exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the way to see my Great Grandad in hospital. He's probably as old as the traction engine (but don't tell him I said so!)

Jamie