More signs of spring

Last week, (on Greyson's birthday, actually), I was one of the parent volunteers for Reece's class field trip to the Lake Metroparks Farmpark. You probably can't find a better place to see spring exploding all over than a farm, and we got a bit of everything. The kids actually had a schedule we had to keep to that involved milking a cow, grooming a horse, and clearing a garden plot. I see what they're doing out there, couching slave labor as a "learning experience"! Not only did the kids not suspect anything, they fought over who got to pull weeds. We parents all tried to figure out the trick so we could use it at home, but we concluded there must be something in the water, because it was just as cold, wet, muddy, and weedy as all our backyards are, and MUCH smellier. Really, with our wild rabbits, squirrels, a bird that built its nest in the wreath on our back door (and keeps dive-bombing Dan), and the garden plot, I could offer a similar field trip to our backyard at a bargain rate and much closer to school. Hmmm, I'm going to work on that...

Doing his part weeding. Luckily, parents weren't encouraged to participate.

He wasn't sure he wanted to do any horse grooming, but once he got in there, he was surprisingly gentle and enjoyed it.

Waiting for a turn to milk the cow, with Ella. He runs his fingers through her hair when they sit next to each other at group time, and she was very upset on the Thursday before Easter that she would miss him too much over the long weekend.

When they brought the cow onto the platform, all the women in the room who had ever nursed let out a collective "ooh" in sympathy. Experiences like this bring me closer and closer to vegan-ism.