The Farm 2009

We all loved the farm. A lot. But Samantha, now, she embraced it like no other. She has the gardening and farming and landscaping from both sides of the family and clearly we have been holding her back as a city slicker. Sure, Elliot has the same genes, but she was not sitting in the vegetable patch eating dirt and leaves and roots and anything else she could stuff in her mouth. She was not stamping her boots and pointing and grunting until someone got her a kitten to hold. She was not climbing fences and saying "moo moo" over and over. She was not tantrumming unconsolably until someone put her back aboard Molly the pony for hours on end. Samantha, she is a farmer at heart.

Elliot checks out Trevor's cabbage. We should all be so lucky if we had access to this farmer's market of veggies.

Elliot with Marmalade the kitten.

David and Naomi Gilkerson, the reason we were all there, celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. 60th! Thanks to all the Gilkersons for such great hospitality and allowing us to run free through every nook and cranny!

On the bench getting ready to light some more fireworks.

Elliot takes a turn with a kitten.

More firework watching.

Samantha and Molly the horse, reunited the morning after she became obsessed with him.

More kittens. But really, babies and kittens. So hard to resist.

Alex gets ready to go out on the horse trails.

We were not going out for the ride, everyone else was, but while they saddled up, Phoebe held the reigns and let Samantha sit on Molly for about 25 minutes - Elliot hopped on for the photo only.

The Jerseydale Farm truck. Awesome mobile.

At the McCory Gardens, we were amazed and awed by the beautiful garden that resulted from Jean Pederson's efforts to bring the original plantings of her (and Ben's) great great grandfather, Neils Hansen, to the garden, and touched by the plaque for David & Naomi in the garden. Neils Hansen introduced several species of plants to the US for the first time from his expeditions to Russia and beyond. Crab Apple trees and many variety of roses...and I am not at all doing justice to the research Jean made so accessible to us (see the program Elliot is holding, and the story board below.)

These are Ben's mom's siblings, who grew up on the farm we were visiting. Carol, Jane, Naomi (married David 60 years ago!), Peggy, Laura, and David

Samantha at ease.

Picking, planting and eating. We handed her some pea shoots and maybe that's what set her off. They were tasty and she wanted to find more. But who can tell the difference between pea shoot and grass clipping at 16 months?

Just back from checking on and feeding the piggies.

A little broccoli cone out in the fields.

Samantha and Molly.

Tractoring off into the sunset.

I can't believe I did not post any pictures of the Bag Swing or of the jillions of relatives...but if you are hungry for more, you can find our entire 400+ weekend on the links below.

Jul 4, 2009

Click on these little pictures (July 4, 2009 and The Farm 2009) for links to the entire album.

The Farm 2009

More Farming to Come ...