I have written before about how a morning at Grandma Windward’s Beastiary is worth a dozen indoor afternoons, and how hard it is to get a place on the visitors’ list. So I will lead with the part that matters: this Saturday, the list is suspended, the gates are open to anyone who turns up, and every coin that comes through them goes to people who have had a hard spring.

Here is the arrangement. Grandma Windward is opening the Beastiary for a full benefit day, and Freeman’s Trading Co. has agreed to match every donation taken at the gate, coin for coin. The money is being split two ways: half to the families burned out of the Lower Trades District by the Greymane Market Hall fire, who are still in temporary lodging while the cordon holds, and half to the households along the southern Fenwater basin who took the worst of the flood and are only now getting the water out of their cellars.

What you get for your donation, besides the warm feeling, is the Beastiary at its spring best. The griffin chicks are at the age where they will eat from your hand and then sneeze on it, the pegasus foals are doing that thing where they forget they have legs, and Grandma Windward herself will be giving the feeding talks she usually saves for the school groups. There will be a honey cake stall, because of course there will, and the Granary is sending down lemonade and shade cloth. Freeman’s is also hosting a market stall and offering free Sanguine Curd to those willing to wait in line.

A few practical notes, because I am still me. Wear boots you do not love, keep small children within arm’s reach near the enclosures, and mind the beaks and the hooves as always. Do not, under any circumstance, let a toddler hold a full plate near the griffin run. The gates open mid-morning and the feeding talks run until the chicks lose interest, which is roughly early afternoon. If you cannot come in person, Freeman’s will take donations at the counter all week and fold them into the match.

Posy Hartwell writes about family life and goings-on in the Rolling Downs. She will be at the honey cake stall, ostensibly volunteering. Tips, event notices, and griffin-related laundry advice may be sent by owl.