Nelly the turtle with Cowboy Zane.
Mom had already caught a red eared slider and a mud turtle before we arrived with a box turtle. Of course all turtles were looked up and identified with one of our numerous nature pamphlets/books.
Rowan was very excited about his first farm camp!
Grandma B thought of everything!
Ro welcomed everyone to camp and handed out their buckets!
Here is the whole crew, ready to explore nature.
Half way through we sat and drew/wrote what we had seen in our nature books.
It's easy to loose track of time at farm camp, but it always would become obvious when lunch/naps was upon. Rowan would become unable to hand life or function without being held. Then I'd look at my watch and it would be 11:30, solidly nap time in his normal life. Sadly Rowan doesn't sleep very well at Grandma's yet, so naps and night time there is always a battle. Once I got Rowan to sleep the rest of the crew headed to the bridge to throw rocks and sticks into the creek. This was when we had our first snake find of camp, courtesy of Abbey's well trained snake spotting eye. This was the largest snake we saw and since it was in the creek there was the added fun of throwing rocks at it.
As is usually the case, once you have thrown enough rocks from the top
of the bridge, you really want to explore under the bridge. The West
side is where we usually go, but after the recent floods it was much to
muddy, so we took the road less traveled and explored the East bank,
which had plenty of large rocks to through and a fallen over tree that
doubled as a balance beam. No one fell in, so it was a successful creek
visit!
The rest of the crew took a very brief rest before we were headed out to our next adventure, horse rides on a real life horse ranch. When we got there the horses were not quite ready for us so we explored the top of of a big red, hay barn. When I closed my eyes the smell of the hay loft took me back to my childhood, climbing on square bales in Grandpa Blakley's red barn. The sights and smells were exactly the same, complete with a little blonde headed boy throwing a dead mouse at his cousins, this time my son instead of my brother. All the kids were great climbers and ventured to the top of the hay pile, unassisted.
Little E got to the top just as quick as the big kids!
I love this picture and am so glad that they got to experience one of my favorite childhood activities. The best parts of farm camp are usually unplanned.
Once we were done exploring the barn the horses were ready for us. Zane was first up to take a ride on the Austrian Haflinger, which were new to the ranch, but the perfect size for children's pony rides. Everyone except Rowan took a ride on the horses before heading off to ride on the little wagon pulled by a different horse. While we waited for people to come back from their carriage rides the rest of us went about saving tad poles from a quickly evaporating puddle. There were tons of them so easy to catch and great, muddy fun!
I know everyone will be shocked to hear that Zane was a little bit to aggressive in his tadpole hunting, probably killing more than he rescued.
Rowan on the other hand stood quietly by the side of the puddle playing withe tadpoles that had already been caught.
When Rowan and I went for a ride it was this horse's third time around the pasture and she was still running extremely fast. It was slightly scary and I am amazed that Maggie and Zane road by themselves without falling off.
After an afternoon in the sun, with lots of excitement, Zane fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. Everyone was muddy, hot, and tired. We stopped at Sonic for cool drinks and spent the rest of the evening resting, looking at the herd of turtles on the porch, and planning for our next days adventures. The dads arrived just in time to tuck the kids into their sleeping bags under a sheet tent in the living room.
Evening came and morning followed.... the second day. Stay tuned!
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