Last week was Kelly’s Class Field Trip to Trader’s Point Creamery, marking the last time I’ll haul 10+ tiny tots out to a cold, wet farm.  Sigh.  Sara’s trip was equally cold and wet, but seeing an Indiana Spring in its full green splendor was worth braving the elements.

So says Mommy, anyway.  Kelly is my city slicker.  The sights, sounds, and especially the smells of rural life horrify her.  She spent the entirety of the trip begging me to take her back to school…IN THE CITY, she clarified more than once. In the blurry forefront of this picture, you can see a large, purple stalk.  That’s asparagus!  Our soil is so amazing, we can grown Land Of the Lost sized food!  Kelly told me that she would agree the asparagus was tremendous, as long as I didn’t make her eat it.

I tried to explain to her that in Indiana, there isn’t a clear delineation between city and country; it all blurs together in the Midwest.  It’s not unheard of for friends to live on 2 or 3 acres inside the city, covered in chicken coops and other farming “accoutrements”.  She could not be convinced, pointed to the sign, and strongly suggested I find the arrow that reads, “BACK TO KELLY’S SCHOOL…THAT DOESN’T STINK.”

Look Kelly!  A calf!  Isn’t he cute?!  It WOULD have been cute had the entire pen of cows, and primarily the bull, not decided that the 12 kids at their feet were perhaps foxes, and made a racket that would have scared anyone, let alone a 3 year old.  We headed over to the chicken coop, only to discover that every single free range chicken had been picked off by predators over the winter.  Free range is super cool on an egg carton in the grocery store, but less cool for the chickens.  Sure, their lives are happy, but they are short.  I love that Kelly’s teacher shrugged her shoulders and said, “Who can blame the foxes?  I like chicken.”  It’s not easy being a delectable animal.

Kelly seem to enjoy the milking barn, but that might be because, A) it was inside and therefore warmer, B) I held her the entire time, and C) I promised her the milking barn was the end of the trip.  Sara’s last trip to this milking barn took an hour.  I couldn’t get her out; she thought it was the neatest thing she had ever witnessed.  See what happens when a Country Girl and a City Boy mate?  You get one of each.  And that ends every picture I might have of the Indiana Spring 2011, without rain.  It has rained almost every day of the last 6 weeks, and there is no end in sight.  If it doesn’t stop soon, I’ll need to send for the Arc. And if our farmers can’t get the planting started soon?  Well folks, we’re all going to have to share that asparagus stalk.