Down on the Farm

Many thank you’s to Granny and Grandpa for taking us to K Farm!

Here’s our day spent farming in the 1890’s…

There is a beautiful farm near us now that is stuck in the 1890’s.

There are threshers, farmers in straw hats, a garden the size of our entire property, and so much to see and chores to be done.

One of the few places where you pay to work. :)

But what fun! To be a pioneer for a day…

and our first stop was to feed the cows.

Like Daisy, the dairy cow.

Arriving there just as it opens has its perks- like seeing the animals in the barn and having a gracious farmer show us around.

Here are three of our pioneers perched on a fence, wowing at the sheep.

R especially loved these guys because they were soft, small, and unintimidating. They even followed him around!

We collected some fallen and shelled acorns and fed them to the pigs. Phew! They were the stinkiest animal there!

After feeding the pigs, we wandered back up to the house to see what we could assist with. They were close to threshing time, and the treadmill and thresher were out, just waiting to get used. While walking back up, a farmer stopped us and asked, or, really, told, us to go let the sheep out- they hadn’t eaten yet.

M, Cousin I , and R all ran down, glad to be of help.

They propped open the gate, and WOW!

Those sheep can RUN! They took off straight for the woods to munch on leaves and whatnot.

The farm also hosted a LARGE chicken coop full of chickens and two roosters, one of which spent the morning strutting around the front yard.

Up on the porch, a lady sat with a large bowl full of mango melons fresh from their extremely large garden.

What is a mango melon, you may ask? And what on earth do you eat it with?

Well….

Mango melons were grown solely for the purpose of pickling. You slice a V shaped slice out of it and dig the seeds out. (they look like cucumbers on the inside) Then you scoop out the seeds and sew the V shaped part on, making a little lid.

then, after letting them soak a while in salt brine (extremely salty water), you fill the inside of them with tomatoes, garlic, onions, anything tasty with flavor, and you pickle the whole thing.

YUM!

While we were there, they were also picking their onions and beans. Here are just some of the onions they picked…

After helping out on the porch, we wandered through the GORGEOUS house feeling very Jane Austen-ish :).

The root cellar was very interesting, and I couldn’t help but picture all of the pickles, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and barrels of other things filling it very soon.

After this, we took a quick break for lunch, then came back, and found, to our delight, that the trolley was running!

They needed to wear out the horses so that they would be gentler that night when they had a bunch of little kids coming out, and we were happy to help them :).

After this, we all split up to go help in various places- the kitchen, the garden, the barn.

L and I pulled weeds in the potatoes, M and Cousin I and Cousin K went down to the pump and the barn.

On our way out, the Big Blacks were out to pasture, and M, who would simply LOVE to be a farm vet or a farmer was able to make a friend-

What a perfect day!

Thank you again Granny and Grandpa!

Kaye