Trip to the Farm

Here's a little "Trip to the Farm" story by our guest blogger for the day Jeni, friend of Sonia - last week's Foggy River Farm veggie box winner.

Sonia graciously let me & my kids accompany her to Foggy River Farms to pick up the veggie box she won. When I asked my kids if they wanted to go to the farm, Ella immediately said, "Yes!" Here was Ryan's reply: "Yeah, I want to go to the farm cuz I want to catch a fish!" Thinking he just misunderstood me, I explained we were going to go to the FARM. He said, "Oh, okay. Maybe I can see the jail where they keep the bad guys!" Is it possible that my child doesn't know what a farm is? All the times he sang, "Old McDonald" and he didn't know what he was singing about? Hmmm.....this will be an educational adventure! We are quite the city folk I guess! On the way we picked up Anna. She was raised in a city too - a big city in the Ukraine. So with our purses & cell phones we headed out to the farm.

As a faithful follower of The J Project blog, I thought I knew all about the famous Foggy River Farm veggie box. What I didn't know is that there isn't actually a BOX. Sonia told me we needed bags, so I did bring a couple of brown paper grocery bags. Her paper bags were much cuter shopping bags :) The kids first spotted a big black dog running about, so Ryan practically jumped in our arms. We saw cute baby goats and the kids were oh-so-happy that they were in cages so that they could see them up close without fear of....whatever they thought a goat would do to them. Ryan especially liked the white one and declared, "I'm sticking with this goat!"

We went into the barn and stared at the chalkboard: Potatoes - 1 lb, corn - 4, butternut squash - 1, etc. Then we started finding the items & putting them in bags. My kids were standing on a wooden bench intently watching the big black dog and letting out squeals whenever he looked in their general direction (he never came within 5 feet of them by the way).

We were able to pick as much basil, parsley, sage, cherry tomatoes, and lemon balm as we wanted. Lemon balm? Seriously? None of us knew what to do with lemon balm, not to mention what it looked like, so off to the basil & parsley patch we went. Anna & I attacked the basil plants while Sonia started the kids picking (make that eating) as many cherry tomatoes as they could. (The big dog had left with its owner, so they were happy now). The sun was starting to set and soon all of us were walking through rows of cherry tomato plants picking what we hoped were good ones. It started getting dark & chilly, so we decided that since we could no longer see if we were picking good ones or not, we best get going.

The car ride home was very quiet. Sonia finally said, "I think the farm is very relaxing! All that fresh air just relaxed everyone!" Thanks to Sonia for letting us tag along and thank you to Foggy River Farms! It was a fun visit to the farm, and although we didn't catch any fish, we did get to see a police man putting handcuffs on a bad guy as we drove back through town!