When people in my family refer to 'The Farm' they typically talking about my Auntie Bernie's and Uncle Bob's. They've been there for my as long as I have memories and my understanding is that they've been there for 53 years now. It's a nice sized farm house with another house across the street with not much else for miles. My cousin Alan lives across the street and the family currently farms over 7000 acres. My biggest worry about this portion of the trip was getting there. Being a farm there aren't exactly nice street addresses that you follow. My directions were to take the Smiley turn off, travel 6 miles till I saw the farm a mile to the right. Luckily I've been there so many times I had no trouble.
We arrived in time for dinner and were treated to ham and garden fresh vegetables. Kerry and I were amazed by the simple salad dressings my Aunt was able to create from scratch. I believe one included salt, pepper, sugar and olive oil. For dessert we had frozen raspberries from the garden. This time I was at fault for creating false expectations with the kids. Auntie Bernie has a huge raspberry patch and I was hoping it would be ready by the time we arrived but there were only a few lone berries that had turned red. Luckily the frozen ones on ice cream are just as good. The weather was very warm so we spent the evenings on the deck with the terracotta warrior playing crib and drinking wine.
After breakfast I took the kids out to explore the farm. When I was young we would use the quadrunner to get around but they've expanded their fleet to include a couple of golf carts and a Rhino. It took a bit of convincing but I eventually got Callie to steer the golf cart with me pushing the gas. She was very cute in the driver's seat. We also headed to the 'Tractor Place' as Carter referred to it. He was initially very excited about seeing the tractors but with the wheels being taller than me he was a tad frightened.
We were only at the farm for 48 hours but there was quite a lot of activity including;
1) Auntie Bernie is a great swing pusher and Callie even let her do a couple of under ducks.
2) Carter got attached to a Teletubby from the toy box that made incredibly stange sounds. I think we've set his language back by at least 6 months.
3) While exploring a pile of rocks with the golf cart we discovered a fox den and had to high tail it out of there before the owner woke up or came home.
4) On the second night there was an incredible storm with lightning and high winds. That was probably the best sleep we had all trip.
5) The kids spent much of the trip playing with Jenny the cat who had a gimped leg. It would attempt to hobble away but Callie and Carter would pick it up and haul it around like a sack of potatoes.
6) The toy box still included a great tractor that I played with as a kid.
7) Callie picked some wheat but rather than taking it home decided to leave it behind so Uncle Bob could make cereal from it.
We had a great peaceful time at the farm and I hope it stays in the family for years to come.
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