Out on the Farm

So about a month ago, Z and I went to visit a local dairy farm with a couple of friends.  It's relatively close to us and they have ice cream, and a flavored milk bar, and a petting zoo, so it seemed like a fun, unusual thing to do on my Friday off with him.  It was a great deal, you got 2 cups of feed for the petting zoo animals, a hay ride, and a large serving of ice cream for $5.

I should remind everyone that Z likes to be clean, like almost Monk-ish clean (you know, the show that used to be on USA network?), so the petting zoo, where we got to feed the animals our 2 cups of food EACH?  For Z, that was more like, stand behind Mommy while SHE feeds the animals, shaking my head vigorously if she asks if *I* want to feed them.  It was all good, my hands got nasty from the animal spit and feed, and a baby cow BIT me, but Z seemed to enjoy the show. 

Then it was time for the hayride, it was a trip around the farm to see all the cows and learn about them and how the farm worked.  We got pretty close to the cows..

And they smelled, well, like cows smell, Z was not amused..

He spent the whole ride holding his nose like this and telling me "mommy da cows stinky!!" and "da cows stinky like pepper mommy!!"  (Pepper is our flatulent pug).  What can I say?  Z is a city boy, but at least we can give him the experience :).

After the hay ride we were able to get our ice cream, this, obviously, was the highlight of the trip for Z, he ate the whole cup.

To this day, every time he sees a cow, he tells me, "da cows stiiiinky mommy!!"  I guess the trip made an impression of sorts ;).

Peaches!

A few weeks ago we ventured to a local farm for it's annual Peach Festival. We've been a few years now, and it's always fun, there are rides and games for the kiddos, the longest line EVER to get peach pancakes, fresh-baked peach pies, and the reason we really go, peach picking.  After waiting in a loooong line to get on the hay ride to take us out to the orchard we were ready to do some peach picking.  Z was especially excited, because he LOVES peaches, and doing *anything* all.by.himself.  So this was perfect, he got right to it, climbing over dirt mounds to get to the low hanging fruit

He put most of the peaches in the boxes for us to buy and take home, a couple *may* have gotten lost in his mouth, and a couple more fell on the ground and were deemed "ewww! dirty with bugs!!" The peaches were a little green, but they still looked mouthwatering.

And daddy graciously helped Z get to the higher fruits when Z decided he was "all done!" with the lower ones.

The weather was near perfect for this excursion, just flirting with being super hot, thankfully the farm had coolers of ice water throughout, the peaches could have used a few more weeks to ripen up, but Z had a blast anyways.