Poing

Since it's Karl's birthday tomorrow we thought we start the festivities today. Hey, 28 hours of labor should at least allow his dear mother to party for an equal amount of time each of the first 18 birthdays. So we took Karl to the Wildpark Poing, which is part natural reserve, part nature trail, part petting zoo. We started out with feeding some friendly deer. The Bambi aged ones were a bit shy, but their mothers sure did enjoy our oats, one even stealing our bag of animal feed munching it down packaging and all. We told Karl that their behavior is paid for dearly in the Bambi movie, but somehow he wasn't fazed that much.



So on we went. It's quiet an impressive piece of deep German woods kept pristinely between manicured farmlands and rural villages turned into rural commuter villagers. Poing by the way really is the name of the village nearby. Karl was super-excited about almost every animal he spotted (hard to document, since now expressed with wild gestures accompanying the screamed announcements of where the most recent source of excitement can be found). He did get to see rams and goats and deer and sheep and boars, a pack of wolves (fighting viciously) and a few lynxes (lounging elegantly). Rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and some very clumsy piglets rounded out the array of native animals, most of them roaming freely in the vast enclave of forest land. There was even a demonstration of hunting birds' skills done by some falconer. The big owl really left a great impression with it's 5 ft. wingspan strafing the audience. Karl seems to be very much into nature, so we're already afraid he won't be enjoying the great indoors as much as his parents do. We might have to trade in the big TV for new hiking boots soon.