Today was my first shift in the Farmyard Nursery, aka the petting zoo. Fortunately it didn’t start until 9:30 so I got in some quality lamb time before then. 🐑❤️

By 9:30 we had a massive queue waiting to get in. Our team leader gave us a great orientation and kept us rotating through stations through the day. I started outside, making sure people knew where to go and to finish their food before they got inside. (I got to yell a lot!) Then I helped out in the pram parking, making sure people knew where to park their baby strollers. We had an hour lunch break, and then I had a turn at the entrance gate for the animal enclosure. Mostly that was just controlling the traffic flow to make sure we didn’t have too many people in there, and reminding people to wash their hands when they left. I only had one occasion to shut the gate as a cheeky goat tried to escape. No loose animals on my watch!

After my shift finished I walked through the Sheep & Goats Pavilion, and I managed to catch a judging for some class of sheep.

For today’s food-on-a-stick, the initial plan was to go for the 2 foot Super Dagwood Dog. But when I got to the stand, my attention was arrested by something unexpected on the sign – PICKLE DOG. It said something about being “infused” with pickles? Available for the first time in Australia? SIGN. ME. UP.

I was munching along happily when I had a surprise. There were also chunks of pickle in there, like a shish kebab! I’m not actually sure the pickles added much though. The overall flavour wasn’t especially sour or pickley. The batter was nice though; better than the mass-produced corn dog I was expecting. It was $14 though, which is pretty expensive. I reckon Twisty Potato is still #1, followed by #2 Pickle Dog and #3 Cheese on a Stick.