All Creatures Great and Small

Patagonian cavy?  Four-horned sheep?  These were just a couple of the unusual animals we saw at the petting zoo at the county fair Saturday.  What a surprising treat!  I had expected the usual lambs, ponies and goats for the children to pet, but I knew something was different when I saw the camel, aloof and regal as it ambled in the huge enclosure with the sign, Camel Rides--$5.00,  attached to the fence.  This was no ordinary petting zoo, but an exotic animal petting zoo!

I felt like a child as I oohed and aahed over the cute faces of the (mostly) gentle creatures.  As I touched the pouffy tuft of hair (wool, fibre?) above the darling countenance of a llama, (alpaca?) I was amazed at how silky soft it was!  Who could resist such a charmer with the long, thick lashes?

Another novel sight was a zebra!  I'd never been close enough to  touch one before.  I thought them to be only black and white striped, but up close, I could see shades of brown, like a shadow between some stripes.  The placard hung on the pen explained that the stripes were for camouflage in their natural habitat.  I could see how the black streaks could look like tall grass or trees in the savannahs and open woodlands of Africa.

One pen held water buffalo and brahma-like cattle, their broad, smooth foreheads warm and solid against my touch.  It felt good to be experiencing this world of animals, God's creatures with which we are often out of touch.  No wonder children love stuffed animals so!

I was reading this morning about the thousand years of peace, or the Millennium, on God's time clock for the future.  The animals will be gentle, not carnivorous, and a natural part of a perfect civilization.  Isaiah:6-8 tells us, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

(7) And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (8) And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den."

What a day that will be! Never a dull moment with God's creation and creatures at peace with each other, as was intended from the beginning.  I might even pet a Patagonian cavy, which I found out is a member of the rodent family.  It looked like something between a rabbit and a kangaroo to  me!