Pictures From The Farm

This gorgeous guy greeted us at the farm where we went volunteering this weekend. My daughter took this picture for me after painstakingly following him around wherever he went. Many of his buddies could be seen wandering around the farm along with the roosters and hens. The following picture gives us the root for the moniker 'peacock blue'. It is the same guy by the way.

 We reached there by 8AM and started planting seeds for the spring. There were these little plastic cells that we filled with potting soil, dampened with water, made little holes and placed one little seed in each and covered it all up. At the end we made tag posts for each of the seeds we planted and staked them inside the cells so we know what is coming up. There were different kinds of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. We will be going back next weekend too since my son needs a few more hours to fulfill his requirements. This time though I think it will be a little more involved as we will be cleaning up after the farm animals and feeding them. I can't says I am looking forward to the cleaning part of it. I was surprised to know that my son didn't have an issue. Must be all that litter clean up they are doing for our much loved kitty cat. A good side effect!

See these two guys living in the farm. One is exotic and so is kept in a cage and the other is not so exotic and therefore free to move around. I think both of them look great. Don't you?

 Here is the goose who seems to be the queen of the farm. She loves the farm person who was helping to set us up. Apparently if she sees anyone talking to him she will come and peck at them and generally want them to move away from him. Very possessive, this one! It was hilarious to watch. I didn't know geese can be like that.

 After an hour and a half of hard work (not!) the kids played on the play structure while we walked around the farm. Then we thought we deserve some breakfast and treated ourselves to a cafe nearby. Had to take a snap of the cool pattern that was on the latte.

Back To The Basics

So while our landscaping was going on we had made two vegetable beds in the space where we had planted before. I was too impatient to wait till spring and so what you see up there are the easy-to-grow in cold weather plants. There are lettuce, onions, herbs etc. We also have flower bulbs in one section but only some have come up so far. My daughter and I did the planting and she was eager to sprinkle on some carrot seeds too. Guess who peeked out to greet the sun this week! I hope they will grow enough so I can replant them properly. We are learning as we do.

My son's 8th grade teacher has give them a requirement to rack up volunteer hours every quarter. He had a spot at the Library but now that the lady has gone on a maternity break that has stopped. So we heard about this farm from his school as a good place for volunteering and visited it. This duck like bird was hiding in the compost bin. Cute Eh? My son discovered her. Me thinks the lady is incubating.

So it is that the four of us are going farming next Saturday guys! I balked when they suggested cleaning the animals and I hope we will get some fun chores first like feeding the animals and gardening. Even though I grew up in a farm and shamelessly enjoyed all the benefits, my contribution to farming was limited. I did enjoy going with my Mom and visiting the cows when they got back in the evening after a full day of grazing. She had pet names for them like 'sumalatha', 'pushparani' 'kochammini' etc. Since one of her pet names for me was 'ammini' I assume she loved them ladies much too. She and my oldest brother has the greenest thumbs but I am going to beat them. Hey, a girl can always hope.