By KEVIN NEVERS

For some oohing and ahhing--and mooing and baaing--take the kids to the Chellberg Farm site at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

Because, after a hiatus of eight years, livestock has returned to Chellberg Farm.

Over the weekend a 900-pound steer named Number 1, a Nubian billygoat named Diane, and three ducks--who may or may not have been christened--were delivered to Chellberg, where they’ll remain on loan until October.

There they’ve joined the chickens which the Dunes Learning Center (DLC) re-introduced to the farm in 2016, under a program spearheaded by DLC Executive Director Geof Benson and enthusiastically supported by National Lakeshore Superintendent Paul Labovitz.

The idea: to give urban and suburban kids--whose only connection to the food they eat may be the occasional trip to the Strack--a more immediate understanding of animal husbandry and agriculture, as well as of the ecology and environmental implications of farming.