When Stephen and I first started dating he mentioned that he had an aunt and uncle who have camels and other interesting animals.
He said we should go to their ranch sometime and check them out.
Then 8 years went by.
Stephen's sister Michelle wanted to take her 3 girls to the ranch to see the animals so we decided to all go together while we were in Napa.
I had no idea what I was in for.
We drove to Sonoma and to the Lyon Ranch and I soon discovered they have way more than just camels!
The Lyon Ranch is run by Stephen's Aunt Robin and Uncle Rob and their daughter Lynette.
Robin and Rob are retired and pay for the ranch out of their own pocket.
They use many of the animals that they have rescued as therapy animals, mainly in local nursing homes.
They do this at no charge.
I was very impressed by their devotion to such a good cause.
You can check out their website: www.lyonranch.org
When we got there they gave us buckets of baby carrots and took us into a pasture full of goats, ponies, mini-donkeys and even a mini-cow.
They also had one of their younger camels there.
She and Nancy had quite a bond.
Avila wasn't so sure about her, and was rather nervous about all the animals in general.
Emma on the other hand was fearless!
I loved the ears on the mini-donkeys.
Mae seemed rather oblivious of all the cool animals around her, but hey, she is a baby :o)
Then we went over to another area where they had lamas, a few older camels and a donkey-zebra mix.
I guess someone had a zebra and the neighbor's donkey was too tempted by the exotic lady zebra and jumped the fence and the Lyon's got the baby.
I didn't get a picture but it looked like a donkey with zebra stripes on its face and legs.
I did get a picture of this though:
Yep, Stephen feeding a camel a carrot from his mouth.
Proof that even Stephen is vulnerable to peer pressure, particularly from family members :o)
We then went into their house and they brought in some awesome birds they have.
Here Aunt Robin is getting the bird to do a trick it does.
This was a really cool, really big bird that she had Stephen hold.
This is one of my favorite pictures of all time.
This look on his face (particularly in his eyes) is his "Oh crap!" face, which he is making because Aunt Robin just told him that this bird's beak is strong enough to crush something with a force of 900 psi.
We then got to go in a room with what I think were wild cats that had been mixed with domestic cats and that were friendly.
There were some really cool looking ones.
We then got to hold some adorable tiny baby african foxes.
Lynette, Stephen's cousin, is caring for these babies for a zoo because the adult foxes will kill the babies when in captivity.
For her payment, she gets to keep one of them.
They grow up to look like this:
(I kinda expect Stephen to look like this when he holds Alice for the first time :o)
Then Lynette brought out this:
It's a Serval that they rescued.
It was huge (like 30-40 pounds) and terrifying.
Lynette is the only person who can handle it.
I wish I had gotten more pictures of it, but I was too busy staring at it hoping it wouldn't jump off the counter and eat me.
That was pretty much their big finale and we were in their living room talking and they were saying "Oh and we have a baby alligator and a hedgehog and..."
Me: "You have a hedgehog!!"
They probably thought I was nuts.
Here they are with all these crazy wild animals and I am excited because they have a hedgehog.
I have always thought hedgehogs were so cute and I have always wanted to see one in person.
So they brought out their hedgehog.
It stayed like this pretty much the whole time.
But it came out for just a second and was the cutest thing ever.
I was thrilled.
When we got back to the car I turned to Stephen and said, "Why didn't we do this forever ago?!"
Thanks Lyon family!
Next post: How I snuck a hedgehog past airport security.
:o)
