Our Little, Everyday Adventures: Cooper! DO NOT chase the Chickens!!

Father's Day 2008 started with breakfast in bed and card/gift opening. I had planned to surprise Jason with a day trip to York Beach in Maine. But did the weather cooperate?? I'll give you one guess.

Jason still had the opportunity to choose the activity for the day. In true Jason fashion, he got out the laptop and started researching. He had it narrowed down to 4 activities. Friendly Farm in Dublin, A train ride in Lincoln, an amusement park in Salem, or a Children's Museum in Vermont. Jackson got to choose the final destination. Jackson chose friendly farm initially, then changed his mind and chose the amusement park after seeing pictures of the roller coaster. By this time it was about 10 am, so we started getting ready for the 2 hour drive. Last minute, we decided the friendly farm would be a better idea!

We went for lunch at Chili's. Jackson loved his cheese pizza (we heard about it the whole 20 minute ride to the Farm). The farm was really nice. The kids could fully interact with the animals. We got a brown paper bag filled with grain to feed the animals. The animals know exactly what is in the bags. They more or less attacked anyone with a brown bag. The goats were especially greedy. These sheep were at least polite, and waited patiently for each handful of grain.

Dr. Dork adds: What a lot of people don't know about New Hampshire (and a great deal of New England) is that sheep farming used to be a large part of the economy. In fact, many of the mills in New England were built to turn wool into clothing, blankets...etc. The old mill that is in Keene and is now a shopping mall used to make blankets and uniforms for the Union Army during the Civil War. As a result, many of the trees that you see when you come to NH are actually fairly new (and when I say fairly new I mean a couple of hundred years old). The land in this area was actually mostly cleared during the colonial and early American periods for farming and grazing. Of course, once lands to the west in the Ohio River Valley opened up for expansion, and the idea of Manifest Destiny drove many Americans west, these lands became a lot less attractive for farming. Why farm a rocky hill when you can run your plow through a flat flood plain in Ohio or Indiana? That's perfectly fine by me though. I like trees.

I think Cooper could have watched the pigs all day long.....

...but no go! We had other animals to see!

There was a little "nursery" barn where there were all kinds of baby animals. We saw bunnies, baby chicks, and 3 day old calf named AJ (so cute).

Jackson got to hold a baby chick.

Cooper was obsessed with chasing the chickens. The chickens did not like to see him coming at all! He came home with a giant chicken scratch on his collarbone, and mommy and daddy had the song "chicken scratch fever" stuck in our heads.

All in all it was a fun day. Good family time. We made the best of a overcast cool day. Maine is still waiting! We'll make it up there soon!