Following the beautiful weekend, Nathan didn't have school on Monday. It wasn't a holiday, just an inservice day. The girls and I were excited to have him home for an extra day, and like most kids he too was glad for the long weekend. I debated just staying home and doing our regular school routine. In my mind, it would be great to have a homeschool day with Nathan again. However, I realize it may be anti-climactic to do "school" on your day off of school, and we hadn't been to my parent's farm for a while, so we decided to go see Papa!
Although it had just been 90 degrees, it was much cooler Monday. It was still in the 60's, but since it was overcast and windy it felt much more like Fall!
We had a lovely day. The morning started early with exploring and driving the power wheel trucks.
Much to Ella's delight, Addie and she found five woolly bears! We had just read about these in a book so the timing was perfect.
Ella loves all of God's creatures. Bugs, snakes, whatever, they all bring her joy. She has a gentleness about her and a way of finding and taking care of even the least of these.
(*Unfortunately, one of the caterpillars was pronounced dead before we left for home. The other four were brought home so we could observe and wonder at them as they transformed into tiger moths. However gentle caring Ella can be somewhat irresponsible and they all got left outside unattended on a paper plate. We're hoping they had a wonderful escape and maybe are somewhere in our garden...the other option is that they were eaten by birds, they were after all on a plate. )
We also went over to Papa's garden to check out his giant pumpkins. He claims none of them are prize winners, but they were pretty big!
Here's a group shot to help get a size reference.
I don't know how much they weighed or how big they were. But, I do know that none of us could pick one up! (We tried).
Pumpkins were not the only giant produce that we found. The girls also found about 3 giant zucchinis!
Evelyn especially loved to try to pick them up and carry them around. My dad offered for us to bring some home since the girls liked them so much. But, no thanks...that's a lot of zucchini bread!
We managed to find some "normal" sized produce to pick too. My dad only planted pumpkins, zucchini and tomatoes-but of them have lots of space to grow!
Right behind the garden is an apple tree. This is my favorite tree because it has Harralson apples. They are a little tart, but crisp and juicy...definitely in my top 5 fave apple list.
How about them apples?
The tree wasn't quite as full as it was last year. This of course just meant we needed to get every apple!
We used a few different strategies:
Climbing is of course a crowd favorite!
And when all else fails, get out the apple picker!
(The other strategy is me reaching and jumping for apples...but there's not photos of that because it's just not that cute.)
Adeline was the designated truck driver. She would drive around the tree so that you could place your apples in the back. She of course drove them back to the house too.
At the end of picking both of the trucks were almost full. Not too bad for about 30 minutes of work.
Following picking apples, we went into town for lunch and our final Ingall's Homestead stop for the season. I think we went four times this year! It's a great place to go, especially when you don't have to do everything but can be relaxed about it. I didn't bring my camera just because I had already taken photos there this year, which probably made it even more relaxed.
I'm so glad that we went back. The kids all love being there and I love that they can be "farm kids" every now and then. It was the perfect way to spend a lovely Fall day off. It goes without saying that the Farm would be better if Nana was there, and whenever we go back her presence is missed greatly. In fact she is missed all of the time. I'm thankful for the sweet memories my children have with her, though I regret there won't be more of them.
And, I'm thankful they have a loving Papa
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