Visit to the Farm

On this beautiful spring morning, the 5 youngest kids and I were heading south to Grandma & Lyles's farm. We donned our rain boots (we were warned of mud) and raincoats (to ward off mud splatter) and hopped into the truck only an hour later than originally planned. Extra nebs and cranky baby were the culprits causing our lateness today. We entered the address into our GPS(which did not recognize the street), picked up some lunch to eat along the way, and settled in with listening to CD's of the kids' upcoming plays so that they could practice their lines and words to the songs. Our estimated arrival time of one hour turned into about 90 minutes as we became hopelessly lost near Madison Lake. "Daniel"(GPS) had failed us, and we had no backup plan. In the middle of cornfields, without signs or city names (or anything else for that matter), our beautiful sunny day now overcast and gray, we were lost. Phone calls to Grandma, as she tried to figure out where we were on Mapquest, and resetting "Daniel" to a more central location, got us out of nowhere and on a highway going somewhere. That highway was registering on the map, leading us finally to pulling up in the driveway at Lyle's farm. Destination accomplished.

We started in the sheep barn getting to meet the newest baby lambs born the night before. It is incredible how they are already so big, can walk, cry (sounding like human babies at times), and be all full of soft, woolly fur...all being less than 24 hours old! We all fell in love with a small little runt who was already a few weeks old, but only as big as the newborns. He is blind in one eye, with a cock-eyed look, but so very sweet...as if a pet you would have in the home. The kids all took turns feeding him a bottle, petting and holding him, and giving him lots of attention. Even Thomas reached out and touched his soft back. Laura is still scared to death of anything that moves, including itty bitty baby lambs that couldn't hurt a fly. She was not thrilled in the least bit to sit in the cramped barn, surrounded by nearly 40 sheep young and old, making quite a noisy, smelly fuss of us invading their living space. Click on the picture of Laura to see her face...it pretty much sums up her idea of the barn.

The kids had a great time climbing the huge mountains of hay in the next room of the barn, and Laura even admitted "This is fun!" Outside, they rode a moving teeter-toter that Lyle's kids had grown up playing with, and spent a great while taking turns on the tree swing. Crispy, the lightweight, enjoyed swinging high enough to be nearly horizontal! Laura screeched with glee, as you will notice if this video loads correctly. Inside the house, Lyle made the kids fantastic raspberry slushies....we NEED the recipe! All the kids were having such a great time, and nobody wanted to leave. But we had to get Jonny to church rehearsal by 4pm, so we did not have the option to stay. We will have to come back another day when we have more time, so that they all can play and play. Warning to Grandma and Lyle: they are all talking SLEEPOVER next time!