Man, Now I Feel OLD

While talking with Bug this morning I made some reference to stunts like Indiana Jones does.

Bug: What? You mean the old guy with the hat?

Ouch.

Farm Camp, Day Five...Saying Goodbye

The last day of camp is bittersweet. The parents are invited to come out at 3:30, so the campers can demonstrate what they've been working on all week. We got there extra-early, so I could take pictures (duh). I'm pretty sure that Linda, the camp director, privately refers to me as the Farm Camp Paparazzo.

When we arrived, Bug and Bear were wrangling their calves into halters and trying to get them to stand up in order to groom them. The calves were pretty sleepy in the hot midafternoon sun, and Bear's especially preferred to sink back down onto the ground to snooze instead of standing patiently. Bug's succumbed to being brushed, but balked when she tried to lead it out of the calf pen.

Bear's calf has a sweet habit of nuzzling her face when Bear lays her cheek against the calf's. You can tell there's a mutual fondness.

All the campers demonstrated for us how to walk their animals by a lead, how to turn them, and make them stop. Some were definitely more cooperative than others. As Linda pointed out, it's important to teach the cows this skill when they're young rather than when you're trying to lead a solid ton of heifer across the barnyard.

After the demo, the kids took a private moment to say goodbye to their animals. They've really built up quite a relationship over the week.

Bear had a hard time saying goodbye to Astro, just like she did with Sierra last year. "I can't belive she'll be a big cow the next time I see her," she told me with teary eyes. Then she asked me if I was sure we couldn't get a cow. Yup, pretty sure!

Refreshments included a salad, picked from the garden and prepared by the campers with a yummy parmesan vinaigrette. Mmm...

Linda also taught them to bake Irish Soda Bread with raisins, prepared with yogurt the campers made themselves! It was AMAZING. Especially when spread with the homemade butter that the campers shook from the cow's cream while we watched. If you're interested, here's the bread recipe. http://recipes.stonyfield.com/recipes.cfm I plan to make a batch later this week, since all four of us loved it.

And so, another summer of Farm Camp ends. This is really one of the coolest experiences my kids have ever had, and will give them memories to last a lifetime. How many kids of their generation get to participate in life on a working farm?

Farm Camp, Day Four

Here is Bingo, the newest baby bull on the farm. He's still figuring things out, like how to run and how to moo. He had the mooing down pretty well by the end of his first day of life.

Other things he's taking a little longer to catch on to. Like the fact that he can't get milk from the other calves in his pen. This little Jersey looks pretty long-suffering on that point, doesn't she? Bingo just charges right over to butt his head up against them, hunting for something to suckle. No luck so far, but he's not giving up easily.

And the girls? By the end of Day Four, they are WHUPPED. 8:30 to 4:00 all week is taking its toll on my delicate little city flowers. These were the faces that greeted me when I arrived to pick them up. Bug didn't even have the energy to talk her usual blue streak on the way home. A long hot shower, a big spaghetti dinner, and these two were in bed fast asleep a solid hour before their usual bedtime.

Farm Camp, Day Three

Wednesday was a momentous day at Farm Camp. When the kids arrived at the farm, they discovered that a baby bull had been born only three hours before. He was able to stand but somewhat tottery on his skinny little black legs. Linda, the farmer, let the campers name him. They dubbed the little guy "Bingo." They loaded him into a wagon to transport him from the barn to the calf pen outside. By afternoon he was awkwardly trying to run and bellowing his displeasure when he couldn't find his mama. No pictures of Bingo yet, since a friend drove the kids both ways yesterday.

In other big news, Manda Panda, the sweet black and white lamb has figured out how to baa. And ye gods, can she BAAAAAAAA. It took me a moment to reconcile the small black and white fluffy lamb trotting to the fence with the unearthly loud bleat coming out of her mouth.

Here's Pip the Goat. The goats are a wily bunch, and on the girls' first day of camp the goats staged a jail break from their pen. Bear said it was chaos...goats running wild and campers trying to catch them.

Bug encourages Miracle the Calf to walk:

Bear on the rope swing:

Gratuitous Beauty

You were expecting to see a photo of me, weren't you? Right? Right? Hello?

Saturday we drove to Boothbay Harbor to explore the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.

Sheer. Heaven.

It was a really cool and misty day, so after de-vanning at the Gardens and paying our admission, we promptly left and drove back into town to buy sweatshirts. Based on the whining and dramatic shivering we saw between the van and the Visitor's Center, I'm quite sure our walk through the grounds would not have been nearly as pleasant without the sweatshirts. Not that I'm naming any names of who the (two) whiners were, but they rhyme with "Hair" and "Mug."

The Garden is laid out right over several hundred acres along the Sheepscot River. We followed a two and a half mile path that wound through many different types of gardens: perennial, woodland, meditation/zen, wetland, etc. There were also spectacular wind sculptures situated in amongst the flowers.

I took this photo in the Children's Garden. I loved the contrast of the Rudbeckia against the bright aqua wall.

Bear and Bug liked the Meditation Garden. They had to "try it out."

They were also big fans of the Fairy Village where kids are invited to build fairy houses using twigs, leaves, stones, bark, and any other natural material laying around.

Being kids, they were complete lunatics for about the first 3/4 of a mile, hopping, skipping, running backwards, jumping. We advised them to conserve energy, since there was still quite a ways to go. They opted to continue cavorting like giggly mental patients.

The last half mile or so was more like the Battan Death March than Pleasant Family Hike. The same children who were previously capering about like red squirrels on crack were "exhausted." Bug's legs were "killing her." Bear claimed she "might die." The final portion of the hike is along a straight path lined beautifully with young birch trees. The staff must be pretty used to people wearing out by that point because several times we saw employees drive by on eight-seater golf carts, and they always asked pleasantly if we'd like a ride. No, Daddy Shortbread and I would say, we're enjoying the walk. Once the cart buzzed on ahead of us, Bear and Bug would look at us incredulously, faces slack with Oscar-caliber exhaustion, "WHAT? Why didn't we get a ride??" Then they would collapse dramatically on a bench while Daddy Shortbread and I continued to walk. We're really nasty, mean parents.

Farm Camp, Day Two....Farm Babies

This time of year the farm is full of babies. When I arrived to pick the girls up from camp, they had moved all the newest calves out to a pen in the yard. This little guy by Bug is only three days old! His name is Miracle because he was born with his hooves curled under. When he tries to walk, it looks like he's on tippy-toe, but as the tendons along the backs of his legs gradually stretch, he'll be able to walk normally.

I'd like you to meet Bear, the human calf pacifier. They ADORE sucking on her fingers. (Can you say "hand sanitizer"?) These two had just sucked down a bottle of milk each, but they were looking around for more.

If she pulled her hand out, they scampered around the pen trying to get their pacifier back. One of the little dickens even started suckling her t-shirt when she wasn't fast enough with the hand.
Here's the other kind of baby I got to meet. There's a fat mama hen with five of these little puffballs. She obsessively counts them and tries to herd them all together to sit on them, which doesn't work out very well with the chicks all peeping and darting around the pen. Aren't they sweet?