A day on the farm

Today was the big day--we made good on our promise to take Andrew to the farm at Thanksgiving Point to see the animals. In retrospect, it was much better that we waited--the weather was milder today, and, more to the point, the crowds were much smaller too. The farm country at Thanksgiving Point is nicely geared towards small children, with just enough to see for them to stay interested without being overwhelming. And since, in the natural course of things, springtime tends to be when many animal babies are born, there were lots of babies on the farm: calves, kids, lambs, possibly a bunny (I couldn't tell if the two smallest ones were babies or just miniatures), and some chicks.

Andrew's favorite of the baby animals was this darling little black kid. I don't know what kind of perspective you get from these photoes, but the kid couldn't have been more than a foot or so high.

Of course, the trip wouldn't have been complete without a little mutton busting--luckily, this sheep was quite, quite stationary.

Jacob and Emi were particularly entranced by the little reconstruction of a small town jail, complete with iron bars and everything. I'm not sure Andrew knew exactly what it was, but he thought it was fun because his cousins did.

The highlight of the visit was, of course, the pony rides. Jacob, who you see beaming in this photo, flatly refused to ride a pony the first time, so it was left to Emi and Andrew to do the trailblazing. Jeni finally convinced him to try it by reminding him that knights ride horses, and Jacob reluctantly agreed to at least sit on the horse. And he loved it. Andrew did too--he wanted to ride again every time the ride was over. All told, he had three different rides on three different ponies. The last time he told me to leave him alone (I'd been putting my hand on the small of his back because I wasn't entirely convinced of his ability to sit still enough to stay on a moving animal), so I stepped to the side and just walked beside him. Andrew turned to me with a glowing smile and announced, "I'm riding a whole big pony all by myself--just like Jacob!" He was rather proud of himself (even if said pony never went above 3 miles an hour).

The only one who didn't enjoy the pony rides was Enoch, who rather loudly protested being left alone in the stroller while mom walked with Emi and grandma took pictures. Jeni finally ended up carrying him around next to Emi. Poor Enoch had a rather rough time of it all around--while we were looking at the sheep and lambs, a particularly large and ugly looking sheep with a particularly vacant expression, came right up to the fence and baaed loudly in Enoch's face. Since everyone else was standing further down the fence looking at the animals, he was also quite alone at this point, and the lack of friendly faces combined with the extraordinary noise just undid him.

We finished off our festivities with lunch at McDonalds (which Andrew persists in calling "Old MacDonalds"--possibly some sort of association with the farm?). The lunch was remarkable mostly for a) the fact that all three kids managed to spill their milk, although Andrew did so most spectacularly, by spilling most of a full carton (which with a typical lack of justice got Jeni wet instead of him); and b) the intentness with which the three children devoured their respective mothers' milkshakes.

This last picture I included mostly because I liked it--Dan and Andrew engaging in Andrew's favorite activity: reading books.