With that being said, about a week and a half ago, on one of our (many!) adventures, Matthew and I headed off to a lovely little farm just outside of the city.
Here, amongst other things, the kids learned from Mr. Farmer about wild turkeys, working farm horses and mules (below).
Incidentally, notice how well the kids are all lined up in the picture above. One homeschooling skeptic that I was speaking to not that long ago was suggesting that my child wouldn't be socialized properly by being educated at home. When I asked what she meant by 'socialization,' her first response was: "hmm, well, umm, yeah, well...kids need to learn to stand in line." Huh? That's the best she could do?? Guess we know how she spent her time in the public school she attended. Well, she may want to take note of the neat line-up above; perhaps that'll ease her concern about homeschooling a bit.
Below, Matthew is in the centre of the hay wagon (in the black t-shirt). He's sitting as far away as possible from all wagon edges because we were stopped in the middle of a field of cows, and about eight of the behemoth bovines and their calves wandered over to check us out and to have their noses scratched. Matthew is not fond of being so close to these large creatures (despite having an aunt and uncle who operate a dairy farm), and so he huddled in the centre of the wagon. As I favoured one cow with a little nose scratching and took a couple of pics, Matthew kept calling out: "Mom, oh moooommmmm, come and sit with me please. I neeeeed you." The second I sat down again, he pressed up against me and expressed a fond desire to have the wagon move along.
Matthew with his buddy, 'A', below. Waking up a dozing donkey.
It was kinda cool watching Mr. Farmer sheer a sheep - I've never seen that before either.
Fresh goat milk anyone??
'Why, yes, thank you - I'll have some fresh milk,' thought one little boy (look closely at the picture below and where Mr. Farmer is aiming his stream of goat milk):
Both Matthew and his buddy 'I' were quite doubtful about the chickens they were watching cluck around the field - for about five minutes, they had an identical look about them. Don't think they liked those squawky chickens at all:
Matthew got a chance to help Mrs. Farmer feed one of the new calves some milk from a bottle:
My camera batteries were running low so I caught very little of the play time the kids had in the barn loft, where the mama cat and her eight tiny kittens played, and where Matthew (below in the brown hat) played with the bunnies for almost an hour:
The farm was set up for kids all right! A whole field was dedicated to play things: sand box; swing set; cars; balls; and these inner tubes that Matthew and his buddies 'I' and 'A' played on for a long time:
After a very full and fun farm experience, we had to leave for home. We were expecting thunder and lightning storms that afternoon yet, and here were the beginnings of the clouds that preceded a very heavy rainfall:
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