Amy's Farm Field Trip

Blogging a post of thirty-something pictures is a little tricky. If this post ends up looking funny due to the placement pictures just think of it as artsy and go with the flow.
A couple of weeks ago we joined our homeschool academy at a farm called "Amy's Farm". It's family owned and run by a few hired hands, but also on volunteers. Considering we live in an apartment with no place to garden and the closest we come to animals is the squirrel that is fed by the neighbors you can be sure this family will be volunteering!
Here is the huge line of "unsocialized" homeschoolers meeting Tina, a grandmother cow over two tons! 

One of the perks of the trip was we got to milk a cow. Mom and Grandpa Wilson, I thought of you both. In your honor, Grandpa, why does a milking stool have only three legs? Because the cow has the utter. :) Once we "milked" our cow by squeezing the utter a couple of times while staring into a pile of muck I wondered what the big deal was. I suppose for us city slickers it's a novelty.

Sometimes this is the closest I can get. They're all in the picture frame, so I'll take it.

Alynna is crazy about horses right now, so this one of probably about twenty pictures of Alynna with a horse.

This was our army of homeschoolers waiting for that huge cow you saw earlier. See if you can Kaeley with her all-time favorite person in her arms.

Nathan caught sight of a wild chicken running around with her brood of chicks. He ran after them with hopes of picking up one of the babies, but they were too small and fast to catch. You can see them just under the fence. Notice Nathan's shoulders crushed under the weight of disappointment. :) 

Here's Kaeley with the lovely Grandma Tina.

This Simon's very flattering "cheese" face. He throws his head to one side, squints with one eye, and yells, "Ease!"

After picking a damaged leaf of Swiss Chard you would feed the leafy part of the chickens and then save the thick red stalk for the pig named... Wilbur. :)

Here they are petting sheep and goats.

Better, but one child short. Simon was determined to get to the overturned bucket at my feet and pound it like a drum. Looking back I should have had these three join him at the bucket. Anyway, there's the three near a goat. :)

I tried carrying Simon in my carrier for most of the trip, but that boy is just plain too big to be held longer than half an hour! My shoulders!

Two of Twenty.

The garden is completely organic. They understand that about a third of it will be given over bugs, and spray nothing to stop it.

Simon calls this animal the "nee".

Sometimes I'm struck by Kaeley's beauty. Simon calls this animal a "moo".

You know it was a good field trip when your nine-year old falls asleep reading a book in the late afternoon.

Thank you to Rhonda Gordan for planning the field trip!
Tina, Nee, and wooly Moo, we'll be seeing you soon!