Down Home Farm Time

Mimi had her annual trip to the Farm with her preschool class last week.

Dad accompanied her this time. Not her strung out, sleep-deprived mom and newborn brother, like last year. See THIS post). I'm sure that we were greatly missed. NOT.

Both Dad and Mimi were looking forward to their time together on a field trip.

I loved the text picture stream sent by Dad:

Bode and I rushed to meet them as they got off the tractor ride- I had a vision of a picture. And by "rushed" I mean saw the tractor was coming, yanked Bode out of the carseat without shoes, spilled a whole bag of goldfish in my haste and didn't lock the car; this Mama doesn't like to miss a photo-op (obviously).

(spot my handsome husband...white shirt, backpack :)

(Ben, thinking, "where on earth are we going to put all this produce, what with all of Mackenzie's half gone Starbucks cups in the fridge?" SERIOUS.)

As I was trying to get a picture of the four of us, a sweet Mom whom I've never met offered to take one! Thanks sweet mom!

Once Bode got his shoes on, he was ready to mingle with some animals. 

(At this point Mimi had ditched us and was jumping on something inflated)

 I really had to watch this kid's fingers...I think the goat thought that they looked like a lovely little snack...

We found a cute little dog friend (shocker!) named Chloe. 

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The best part of the whole thing was that night.

We spent at least three hours cleaning the vegetables and making various kinds of soup (did I say it was the "best" part?! My what a week away from the experience will do ;) It was a long tedious night of vegetables and feeling the pressure to be resourceful with our bounty of produce. It was fun at times though, watching the kids get dirty in the sink and Mimi chomping on fresh carrots she had just picked till her mouth was stained orange. However, there was a point when I was wishing they had been normal and just brought back an ear of corn and a pumpkin or two. But we've really made good use of all the veggies. 

That night I made our "virus killer" soup to ward off all the germs that threatened to take our family hostage. I even cooked a whole chicken. I felt like such a prairie woman (by the glow of Wednesday night football on TV ;)

The night of vegetable washing and cooking:

Everywhere you turned, there was another mystery bag of farm booty...

In the sink:

On the counter:

I even found a bag on a chair in the dining room, stuffed there when the sinks and counters filled up. Goodness! That's a lot of vegetables!

Here's the long awaited (read: TWO PLUS HOURS!) chicken stock for the virus killer soup. If you had smell-o-vision on your computer, the garlic smell would sting your nose. That's the secret ingredient.

Doesn't it seriously look like a Cabbage Patch Kid could jump out of that head of cabbage. I peeled it back very cautiously...

This picture may have been taken just before Mimi asked if she could take her cabbage leaves into the bath with her. I said yes. Dad said no. So swimming they went... ;)

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Come to our house for some good cabbage rolls, virus killer soup, (carrot soup and corn and potato chowder, coming soon!)...!

This is the "random farm video" :

(of Bode, because again, Mimi found more fun things to do than to be documented by Mama)