More Farm Time

Our family got a much need change of pace this past weekend.  We headed to my Uncle Keith and Aunt Leanna's farm, our happy place.

The boys rode their bikes all over Small Town, USA.  They also got to go swimming at the local pool.  Grace and I gawked at a huge, lovely organic garden and were gifted some beautiful organic produce. Matt got up at four one morning to help Uncle Keith do some swathing.  He also got started reading World Magazine's book of the year called The Book of Strange New Things.

Paul got to play a round of golf with Grandpa Tom.  We enjoyed several al fresco meals and unhurried after dinner conversations in the ideal upper 80s temps.  Elizabeth put some more hours on her driving log.  Thankfully, Matt has handled most of the driver's ed so far.  I'm working up to it in small doses.

In addition, the boys enjoyed picking giant radishes from Uncle Keith's garden, fishing (even though they didn't get any bites) and pretending to drive farm equipment.  Rachel ate a dead bird.  She was rewarded with the forced throw up treatment.

On the way back home, we stopped in a town which is home to a famous knife maker.  My uncle had arranged a meeting between Paul and this man.  For Paul, this was like meeting Russell Wilson.  He spent two hours with the knife maker, looking over all of his equipment and hanging on every word he said.  Paul left the meeting with the man's e-mail address and orders to send any questions he might have about knife making his way.

While Matt and Paul were with the knife maker, I took the kids to the local park to eat lunch (kindly provided by my aunt and uncle).  We were down four family members.  Matt and Paul, of course, were with knife man and we had left Elizabeth and Joel back on the farm to spend a few extra days. It was really weird for all of us to fit at the same picnic table.  I kept looking around thinking, "This isn't right.  Who's missing?"

After lunch, the kids played on the play ground equipment.  Jude's deplorable lack of monkey bar know-how prompted me to "show him how it's done."  Pride goeth before a fall.  Let's just say the monkey bars aren't as easy as they were thirty five years ago and my still hurting shoulder proves that fact.

Once we arrived home in the late afternoon, we hit the ground running.  Paul changed irrigation water lines for the neighbor, Grace gave all of the boys haircuts, I unpacked and put together a simple supper of sauteed squash and leftover sandwiches and Lydia gave her bees some attention.  We all fell into bed exhausted that night.  Another fun time on the farm was had by all.