Farm City Day…

When I was a girl, my sister and I would visit my Mother in Pennsylvania on the dairy farm she and her husband ran. There were like 200 of these:

So Megan and I got to feed the calves their bottles, feed the “teenager cows” feed and water (I loved the water dispensers…VERY cool to a kid) and even GOT to help in the milking parlor in the evenings and clean up the parlor and scrape the manure afterward (to put it politely) into the barn to later make it into the pit out back and into the fertilizer spreader later.  Being on a farm was a vacation for me until I graduated from high school and moved there to live and was expected to do my part…but that’s a different blog entry all together. 

During the summers, there was a thing called “Farm City Day” when the kids from the city would come out and play farmer for the day. There were milk drinking contests, hay rides, goat milking, and other fun farm stuff.

My children would be THOSE city kids! 

How foreign farm animals are to them!!

We started off Spring Break 2010 by going to Kensington Lake Metro Park.  They have a Farm Center there with a barn full of animals downstairs, where all the babies are born and an educational area upstairs and then the more open farm areas outside. 

Sariah made a point to tell me “I’ll go see the baby pigs but I DON’T want to walk around and see the other stuff.” (Where did she think she’d be while the rest of us were wandering?? Needless to say, I put her in charge of photos and she was all about walking around to EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL!)

Checking out the goats

 

 

 

 

Trying to PET  the goats

 

 

 

 

 

      He isn't so sure yet about touching them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

STOP! 

Before you look at the next photo, let me tell you a bit about this girl.

Sariah is my “Ultra Clean” child.  She doesn’t like to be dirty, WOULDN’T finger paint as a small girl…not even with Chocolate pudding and is allergic to soft and fuzzy animals.  Her eyes puff up and tear. And remember she “wasn’t going to LIKE seeing all the animals”

Here SHE is:

(OK – you can look now)

I happen to adore the look on her face!

It says:

“Look at me!! I am TOUCHING A REAL LIVE, UP CLOSE    C-O-W!!!!”

 

 

 

Now Sariah is so COOL with it. 

“I do this all the time. This is so old hat!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miranda and the same cow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They spent about 10 minutes with this cow taking bunches of pictures as she was eating her dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was on to the pigs. 

Ask Sariah what she thought of the pigs…it’s a funny story but I don’t want to embarrass her here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is lambing time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama… a.k.a. Mrs. Ewe

 

 

 

 

 

1 day old lambs! So Cute!!

 

 

 

 

 

And oh so soft!

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner! Come and get it!

 

 

 

 

 

There were plenty of other lambs with their Mamas and other animals to photograph as well…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Usually there are quite a bunch of piglets, but this year there are only 4.  They are cute and so funny.

The kids had to show off their strength and try out the pulleys. When you lift 20 lbs alone it’s REALLY heavy, when you use pulleys they pulleys do some of the work for you.  The more pulleys, the easier it is on you.

Here is Tallen demonstrating the pulleys

Getting ready…

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

One pulley…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pulleys…    

(so much easier)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three pulleys.    

so easy he almost fell pulling the rope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Miranda just showing off!

She is so strong!!

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of gals have to WORK for arms like this…I tell her to keep it up. Stay active and healthy.

 

Ready to carry milk into the house from the barn.

 

 

 

 

 

 Oh…, right, we don’t hand milk cows for milk.  But they are ready!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many hands high are you??       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Sariah is 15 hands high

    Miranda is 14 1/2 hands high

 

 

 

 

 

    Tallen is 12 hands high

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great day out with the children.  After the farm we stopped for a little while at the playground. Very fun. Sariah sat in the van and listened to her Mp3 player, Miranda and Tallen played and I was able to sit for a spell and knit.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tallen’s new favorite activity

Climbing!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet

Success!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Today, was a good day. I was able to enjoy the nature around me…

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and to just BE with my kids and not have to worry about the laundry, the dishes or the rest of the chores

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow I will go back to feeling a little like this chicken

(I feel this way often actually…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The children will keep     growing older…

 

 

 

 

 

 

   …and need me less and less…

 

 

 

 

 

 

    …and grow further and further  from me.

 

 

 

 

 

    But this is how God intended it to be.  It is the circle of life! We teach them and then they go out on their own…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad they’ll always have each other!!!

But for now they are still up close and personal and oh so beautiful!

 

SARIAH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIRANDA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TALLEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I give up!! I put it in the program and TRY to upload my beautiful and creative entry and it ends up looking like this…..SORRY, I did the best I could.)