E I E I O....

After school trip today! I'd heard about a quaint little farm a couple of towns over and in my endless quest to avoid endless hours of preschool on TV Noggin, I decided that after I picked Ethan up from school, we'd head up there and get all commune-with-nature-y.

Ethan was not at all sure about this; I heard more than a couple of times from the backseat, "Let's just go home." But I was determined. No TV! More nature! More fresh air!! Yay! I AM a good mom! He might eat chicken nuggets and get lost in the library, but dammit! We are SO all about the outdoors and appreciating nature and being good stewards of the environment. Yay, me!!

In a karmic kick in the pants, the farm kind of blew. I was a good girl and left my $5 donation at the honor system gate. We parked in the lot and walked in the general direction where it seemed like there might be something of interest. Speaking of things of interest--the sign about mountain lions being "active" in the area? Yeah. That was interesting. Active? Like...participating in zumba classes active? Or, like ripping people to shreds active? Either way--glad we didn't see any.

There wasn't a whole lot to see. Some aging hippies tending a communal garden and whipping up an impromptu shed. A couple of kitchy signs, like this:

You can't see it really clearly, but that sign? It says, "POOP HERE." Um. No, but thank you.

And this one:

which is really cute, but you know what? I already left you $5 at the gate and I haven't seen anything yet but a sign that shows me where poop goes and another sign that tells me a mountain lion is probably trailing me and getting ready to pounce. Soooo, I'm going to pass on giving you more money. Mkay?

Eventually we did find a pen of pissed off goats, a small field of pecking chickens (pecking the ground, not us, thankfully) and a couple of very vocal pigs. Ethan was really none too pleased with any of them. I heard a lot of "I want to go home. Can't we just go hoooooome?"

I was ready to dig my heels in and say, "But this is important!!! We're learning about agriculture and animals and other very important things!!! And I think there are rabbits around here somewhere," but as soon as I realized there were no bunnies to be found--we were out of there.

It was a pretty big disappointment, but there were some cute shots to be had:

rustic

Chicken Little and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat

What are you lookin' at?

way more interested in the berries than in the animals.

book ends

You can see how much fun he's having, right? Ethan LOVES a farm.

We get to leave now?!!!! And go home to the TV?! And I can chase the cats?! YAY!!!!!