Becky Robb gave kids and adults a chance to see, pet and bond with a wide representation of her menagerie at Riverside Park Thursday.
“This is the fourth year I’ve had the animals here,” Robb said, allowing it was easier for her to trailer the animals, from common to exotic, to the park than make them accessible at her rural home. They were in the barn where come fair time she will have many again for a pet zoo.
First-grade students from all Iola schools, as well preschoolers and others from daycares, began arriving late morning, with the total topping out at about 225. Delegations from nursing homes also were invited, and passersby who couldn’t resist stopping.
After viewing and petting animals, kids were invited to do crafts, play games and even milk Allen County Farm Bureau’s fabricated cow.
One enclosure held a pair of Jacob sheep, and a newborn who arrived Wednesday. Another had the younger of two camels Robb owns. “I don’t have a trailer big enough for the older one, and it would hit its head on the rafters” of the barn where the took up short term residence.
A kangaroo was encouraged with soda crackers to cozy up to kids, and a tortoise, as large as a wash pan, worked its way around the edges of a pen.
The tortoise, said Robb, is “15 to 20 years old and can live to be 150.”
Kids oohed and aahed and giggled, and a couple even had tears when it came time to leave.
