On the Farm

For preschool a couple of weeks ago we learned about farm animals.  ODD’s parents have a lot of land and used to have all sorts of animals.  My FIL has Parkinson’s Disease and can’t keep up with all of them so over the years they’ve pared down quite a bit.  They still keep cows (none that need to be milked anymore, though) and chickens.  The Wild’s are also able to keep Wildbound’s horses, Wayfarer and Rio, there so they can ride whenever they want.  They also have a dog but I don’t know that he really qualifies as a farm animal.  Either way Peanut is very wary of him.

Sometimes when we visit them Peanut will go out with ODD’s mom or dad to the barn to gather the eggs from the chickens.  I’m not sure how this really goes down as I’ve never witnessed it myself but I suspect it involves Peanut remaining near the door of the barn and watching as the person she is with actually goes into the chicken coop to get the eggs.  There’s a big woodpile on the path to the barn and sometimes we see a bunny or two sneak around there.  She likes looking at Rio and will even pet his pretty mane (he’s what you’d picture as a princess horse) as long as he doesn’t look at her but screams and cries if we even suggest she go for a ride on him.  She knows there are cows at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and sees them in the field sometimes but we don’t often go look at them.

Because of all this Peanut knows a bit about farm animals but ODD’s parents house isn’t exactly a farm and I wanted her to learn what a farm can actually be like.  As an activity one day we went to Wheeler Farm.  I called up Lady of Perpetual Chaos to see if she and her girls would like to go along and we all met over there for lunch.  The girls ran around and played while occasionally picking at their lunches and Lady of PC and I chatted.  Wingnut ate his half of a sandwich, finished most of Peanut’s sandwich, then scarfed down a bunch of Cheetoes as well.  Apparently he was starving.

After playing for a while we went to see the rest of the farm.  I brought along some extra bread and we fed the ducks and geese.  Wingnut was quite cautious of a goose that was rather close but he didn’t scream like he did with the duck when I tried to take his picture a while ago.  There were even a few tiny ducklings and goslings.

We saw the horses and one seemed particularly fond of Lady of PC.  He followed her all along the fence as we looked at the bunnies.  Some of the bunnies were huge.  I sort of wished we could pet them because they looked so soft but they were in their little hutches.  I thought this one was such a pretty color.  It doesn’t show up much in the photo but it had a red tint to it’s fur.

We saw big cows out in a field and goats in pens.  We saw a huge pig that peed in front of us and made the girls giggle.  There was a tractor out that kids could sit on to get their pictures taken.  The girls especially loved that.  Yes, my daughter is wearing both a dress and a skirt.  She dresses herself.

We walked around to the lambs so Peanut could see their wool.  While we were looking at them one of them bleated loudly and scared the daylights out of Wingnut.  He jumped and screamed.  Perhaps the lamb thought Wingnut was talking to him because he began bleating more and more and we eventually had to move away to help Wingnut feel better.

The turkeys were funny to see and we gobbled at them.

The chickens and roosters were noisy but not as scary as the lambs were apparently.  One of the roosters was wandering around outside the coop like he was keeping guard.

There was a little playhouse and huge tree the girls had fun playing on.

On our way back through the farm we saw a few young cows and Peanut even touched the pink nose of one of them.  It was quite a break through

Lady of PC and I let the girls play more so we could keep visiting.  It was sunny out but still a bit chilly and, naturally, I managed to get my forehead, nose, and part sunburned.  Oh, well.  Not everything can be perfect.  I didn’t take the pics until the sun was down and our indoor lighting isn’t the greatest but you can still kind of see it.  I spent the rest of the week either itching or peeling and now it looks like I have dandruff because of my part.  Love that.