At the farm

Rhys and the kindergarten classes finished up their Farm unit last week by having a field trip to a small hobby farm of one of the teachers.  It happened to fall on the day of our follow up appointment with the pediatrician, which was a conflict for schedules, but in the end, my Hunny stayed home from work (which is such a blessing that he can do that) and spent the day with Eden and picked up the kids after school. That meant that I could go on the field trip with Rhys and we just had to leave ten minutes earlier to make it to the appointment. I like it when things work out!

The kindergarten classes already had baby chicks for the past few weeks. That's an annual thing that I went through with Abi, Kai and Bryn already. It's so much fun for the kids! They have a bunch of chicken eggs come in that stay in a heated incubator for the kids to check on each day. When the eggs hatch, they learn all about how a baby chick grows and each class gets to "chick sit" with them in the classroom running around on paper! There is a lot of excitement throughout the school when the chicks are born!  Usually.  Except for Rhys. I barely heard about it, which I was surprised about. He's my enthusiastic child and he wasn't all excited over it!  I don't think it had anything to do with him not looking forward to it, but to him not remembering. Or understanding. Or maybe it really about him not actually being interested. I tried to get him to tell me about it and we looked at the baby chicks, but he didn't spend much time wanting to pet them (I was reminded that it had to be a pinky finger to touch, not any other finger and definitely no picking up!) and he got distracted easily.  Very curious.

This farm trip was on a dry and sunny day (thankfully), so it wasn't too muddy, but I was glad that I remembered to wear boots! We had to walk through a field that was squishy and puddly. In fact, to our horror, one of the moms got stuck and fell in the mud while carrying her son across the muck, all the way up her pants!  We felt bad for her! Thankfully, she either had other clothes in her vehicle or she managed to find something that fit from the hostess because she rejoined us later, all clean and happy!

We arrived on a perfect day for more than weather too. One of the cows had her baby that day!  In fact, she delivered the calf while we were there so we got to see the newborn at ten minutes old! (which is why we were walking through the muddy field: to get to the cows to see better.)  It was so exciting!  Very neat yet so messy and gross!

 (Mommy, Daddy and baby!)

(The Daddy was staring us down as we checked out the calf!)

We also saw the pigs (which Rhys liked the most) The farmer tried to tell us that pigs are actually clean animals, but I have a hard time believing it!  I don't want to believe it, I guess--years of old wives tales and such that we're taught at young ages: Pigs are dirty and glutonous. When in fact, they only eat until they are full; they'll stop eating even if there is food left, whereas a lot of other animals will eat til it's all gone. And they have certain areas where they eat and where they poop. The don't go to the bathroom everywhere, unlike some animals. I thought that was very interesting.

There was chickens to see and feed as well, but those didn't interest him much.

He did enjoy the tire swing though, and running around the large yard!  

 

The teachers had put out some games for the kids to play after we did our tour of the farm, so Rhys and I played a jumping one. You just jumped on each circle and named the animal on the picture you landed on. Not the most exciting type of game, but the kids seemed to like it!

 I was happy to be able to go with Rhys. I loved the smell of the hay; it reminded me of my Oma and Opa's farm back in Ontario. Maybe one day I'll be able to take my own kids back east so they can see where I spent my childhood and they can meet my relatives. That would be incredible!

I love farms!  I like to think that I'd love to live on one, but I'm not too sure about taking care of tons of animals.  But I'd sure love to find out with some property and smaller ones like bunnies and ducks!