Our Farm

Okay so it isn't our farm, but we treat it like it is.  The owner's let us cruise freely and spend as much time as we'd like.  Every Friday we go pick up our produce from our CSA, check out the animals, and cut flowers.  Ryker used to cut flowers, but now he cuts the dirt clumps.  Much more of a challenge as some are really hard.  At least he's not thowing them.  We spend at least an hour there each week and sometimes go for the special events.  We haven't made it to a "work party" but do attend the events like the ice cream making day!  Ryker loved the home made raspberry ice cream. 

This is a 14 year old pig.  It might be Ryker's favorite farm animal.  He always wants to give it "treats" because one day another member of the CSA fed it some raspberries.  It is more of a pet pig and it will eat from your hands, but I really don't want him to think it's okay to stick your hand in a pig pen.  The lambs and sheep, perfectly fine.  Heck even let the turkey peck you; not the end of the world, but I've seen some pretty mean pigs and that's not an animal I want him interacting with unless we know it is nice.

He loved the lambs when they were little, but now that they are grown, they aren't as interested in him and don't come to eat the grass he puts through the fence as often.

The ducks often roam freely and he loves to follow them around, but he really loves it when they are swimming in their tank.

Liz, Colton, and Ryker cutting flowers.

Colton getting a good wiff of the sweet peas.

Ryker digging in to the peas.

Now lets talk about the food....Delicious!  We get a wide variety of stuff and it has been awesome, especially since I'm pregnant.  I'm eating things that I normally woudn't buy (kale, rainbow chard, fava beans, currants, kohlrabi) or take the time to prepare.  I'm still pretty short on time but they gave us a cookbook on how to prepare everything and I have a friend at work that is quite a chef that gives me the scoop on the easiest, fastest way to prepare things.  I don't think anything will top the strawberries as Ryker's favorite, but he is rather fond of the sugar snap peas that we are getting now.  I haven't had them since my Grandma's garden and they are GOOD!  I haven't had kohlrabi since the days of good ol' Marj either, but she always grew the green variety, where the ones we get here are purple.  I don't think I'll be able to go back to store bought califlower.  The califlower is spetacular and I never thought I'd be saying that about califlower.  It's not like it is one of my favorite vegetables or anything, but it tastes so much better FRESH from the garden.  Yes, I've tried to grow a garden, but I'm just not dedicated enough to care for it properly (or organically like the crazy hard workers at Riversong Farms) and I would never plant the variety of produce I can get there.  For $13 a week, it is well worth it.  I was spending more than that on boring sub par produce from the store each week.  Plus, we get to have an outing at the farm each week where Ryker has been learning a lot and meeting lots of new people.  When he's older he'll be able to attend the work days which I think will be a valuable learning experience for him.  For right now though, we're sticking with the cider and ice cream making days. 

What am I going to do when winter comes?  I've frozen some things, but nothing close to what we'll need.  Maybe Seth will can some stuff when he gets home. Oh wait, Seth only cans pickled beans that are so hot that no one can even eat them!