Farm Tour

The last two weeks have found us mired in the autumnal gray wash of post-equinox PNW melancholy. Glorious days have coincided precisely with days that we've been stuck at the YMCA for classes. Bummer. I tend to think of autumn here as being kind of fuzzy 'round the edges; when the gray descends, the lines around everything (from leaves to street signs, my own hands to the shape of the car in front of me on the road) become ill-defined. The weather claims everything for itself. In my head, this isn't vicious; the overcast PNW-stereotype-gray-drizzle (it's a stereotype because it's TRUE, people) comes flowing over us to tuck us into bed for the winter. We are further north than most people realize, and by the time solstice comes around, daylight hours are precious few. I don't really know who originally told me that the people in our area are better read than usual because of this sleep-inducing weather-stupor that covers us for 4-5 months of the year, but it must be true; this is the weather for sitting in a corner with a spiced drink of some sort (let's just roll with the stereotype and say it's coffee) and a book.

At 11am, the light in my home is artificial. The warmth, thankfully, isn't; our heating bills were atrocious last year and we're putting off turning on the furnace until we have to.

We bring warmth in our own more emotional ways, instead. The smell of autumn, the excitement over Halloween. The sharp ginger-and-clove spices of fall, the warm smells of baking. Pumpkins. Sleeping in.

This weekend we went to the Farm Tour and (aside from a BittyPrincess meltdown of absolutely mind-boggling non-origin) had a great time. That child (BittyPrincess) has been really...emotional lately. "Go change honey, you can't wear your princess dress rock wall climbing." "YOU HATE MEEEEEE!!!!" (runs screaming into her bed). She's probably having issues with not being the baby of the family anymore, but since she still loves everybody, she has no idea how to vent it.

Anyway...Farm Tour...we saw chicks hatching at Gentle Giant Farms (this is the farm that gave us free apples and pears two years ago, because the farmer felt bad about the state of them...even though they were PERFECT for canning):



And (Girliness' favorite) got to feed the horses:



On to Creviston Farm, where the 10yo girls got embroiled in helping the owner's granddaughter care for the chickens (they were extremely happy about this), ate lunch:





And played with little bitty chicks:



We went to the Fiber Arts showing, and the kids got to card wool and keep the finished product (again, extremely happy kids). This was the site of the BittyPrincess melt-down, so no photos.

A final stop at Morgan Creek Farm, where I was intending to let everyone else explore while BittyPrincess and I hung out in the car resting, but BittyPrincess remembered that this is the farm that the flowers at the farmers' markets come from and wanted to check it out. She recovered her cool and walked around taking pictures of the flowers:





It was all in all a successful day, even though we could totally have done way without the meltdownage.