St. Augustine is one of the great doctor's of the Church. His Confessions and The City of God are well worth the read!
It's time to take the castle outside when the weather is as beautiful as it has been this past week and the one coming up. Absolutely glorious!
Schleich figurines are our favorites
Poppy explores, #10 babies have to keep up with the big kids. But please notice she is sprouting some hair. If FJDP ever frequents this blog he may like to know that it almost looks like she may be blonde like her patron (St. Poppy, of course) afterall. ..... I am adding here after looking at this post... her hair in real life looks more blonde than in the picture but I am still hoping for brown!
Pippin decided he just had to try to set that leaf on fire. Let's just say he doesn't get the "fire tendency" from my side of the pool!
It is grape season... yes, I know those aren't grapes.... so I wanted to get a few pictures and had to find my way to where my grape pickers were. This was my path.
Due to the warm spring, the grapes are ahead of schedule. Someone once told me that the time to pick grapes is after the first frost. Well, that isn't true (spread the word)... maybe if you are in Alaska. We waited one year and the grapes were shriveled up, not like raisins but like... crispy dried grapes.
Galadriel up the grape tree. Well.... grapes don't grow on trees but grapevines do! Since these are wild grapes they are all over the place wound around wherever they decide to grow.
Sam
Here is Rosie, Queen of Poison Ivy. Purdy, ain't it? 
Aren't they pretty? They are the nice sour kind so they make terrific jelly.
It struck me so funny to watch my hobbits walking into the corn field, reminding me of the scene in LOTR when they were walking into Farmer Maggot's crops. But I was slow and well, here's a "where's waldo" for you... in this case, "where's Rosie?"
We met a family at the zoo and while we waited for them to arrive we took a ride on the new-ish train.
It's it adorable? I'd like one of those for driving around our place.
Waiting for our turn.
8 of the 12 of us rode the train so of course we took up 2 train cars.
You may recall my asking for prayers 16 months ago for a little baby (I think I posted it here anyway), well, here she is and doing well and thriving.
Gotta love the monkeys.
They have added scores of new oddly painted animals to the zoo's collection. I suppose the animal rights activists will eventually try to replace all the animals with plastic ones. What kind of world would it be for the children of the next generation to go to the zoo to see plastic animals?!
I took this picture most especially for Lady Modesty. I would have liked to buy it for her if it were for sale. Some people have scare crows, others scare toads.
TWLA Lady Modesty!!!
Now this was the best part of the day. This man brought out a parrot and gave this really great presentation.
The parrot's name is Loro... which we learned is parrot in Spanish.
Here is Loro eating a peanut which was really a fascinating process to watch. Ok, I am very easily entertained.
Merry as a merry Polar Bear.
This is my friend's son.
"What in time and tarnation" is this kind of tree? It looks like a potato tree but as we know, potatoes don't grow on trees.... usually!
"Rodents of unusual size" (capybara). We learned they swim, too.
Penguins are always interesting little creatures.
But the giraffes are the best!
Did you know that giraffes have ears and horns? Someone told me they didn't realize that until we were taking this picture.
Betcha can't bend over like that and get up again!
This chimpanzee was very entertaining but the grossly intense chimp-guard was even more intense. She was very sure that everyone who stopped to look at this chimp was out to rile him up. She lectured for a full 15 minutes about how we mustn't wave at the poor creature or he'd get his defense mechanism up and how would we like it if strangers stood and stared into our house, wouldn't we be unnerved.
Poppy made a friend.
Suddenly she decided to take off. 
And what did she find! Another present for Lady Modesty! I think we've got a theme going here.
Back at home when Aragorn and I went for a walk we spied our friend the snapping turtle back in his/her favorite spot.
This oddity is a wild cucumber. Probably not safe for eating as a pickle.
