Eddie's Day Out with Mom

I don't get to spend many days with just Eddie, since Dominic is still so little.  So it was extra special for me to be able to bring her to a local place called Johnson's Family Farm this weekend.

It was a small place, and the animals were limited to goats and chickens (which you will hear a bit more about later) but it did have two major attractions that Eddie loved.

The first one was the Hayride.  Now, when you think of a hayride, you probably think of a wagon pulled by a horse plodding placidly along a trail, while you sit on haybales and admire the scenery.

This one had the haybales, and the wagon.  It also had a tractor controlled by a wannabe racecar driver who would not hesitate to drive us up the sides of hills at speed; buckets of small gourds used as ammo against a horde of scarecrows (and the occasional bucket hanging from a tree); and culminated in a pumpkin patch complete with elastic catapults for flinging gourds at targets set a long way away.

Yeah.  That was a cool hayride.

When we first arrived at the farm, the hayride was just leaving.  Eddie ran down the path behind it, calling "Come back, come back!"  I chased her down (no idea how long she would have followed it!) and convinced her that it was going to come back, and that we would ride it when it did.  A staff member told me that it would run every thirty minutes, so I got us checked in (it was a sponsored event run by our realtor's agency) and settled her with some snacks.

Then the tractor returned!  Eddie raced off, cookies in hand, and wriggled up the stairs into the seating area.  I was left clutching some half-empty packets of cookies, stashed our two water bottles in a corner, and tried to make sure I got on board too.

Eddie clutching her cookies.  She doesn't know what's going to happen, but she's raring to go!

Having boarded somewhat abruptly, we hadn't brought our own bucket of gourd ammunition, but there was a communal barrel that I dipped into a few times.  Eddie just watched, as you can't hold cookies and throw pumpkins at the same time.

Lots of targets to choose from!

When we got to the end of the ride, there was a huge field with pumpkin catapults.  We got off to check it out.

Looks like fun!  It probably is.  I wouldn't know.

But as soon as we were off the wagon and other people started getting back on - the ones who had come out on the previous ride and were done pumpkin-picking - Eddie decided she wanted to go for another ride right away.  Once again, she darted up onto the wagon and I had no choice but to follow, looking longingly at the catapults.  (Next year, I will be back!)

When the ride was over, and we were back at the farm proper where we'd started....she didn't want to get off.  Instead she selected a new haybale seat from which to experience the ride.  Fortunately our realtor was among those who had been picked up at the field, and I asked her if it was possible for us to ride again.  She had a word with someone and gave us the thumbs up, so onward from a new vantage point!

I bet you can guess what happened when we got to the pumpkin patch.  That's right - nothing.  She didn't dare get off.  Though she did choose a new seat.  I asked her to smile for a photo and she gave me this:

It was a bright day, and I think we were both feeling a bit sick from the exhaust and dust, but she was determined to get as many rides as possible.

After the second return trip (making four rides so far) I convinced her to get off and have a drink of water and a rest.  She also tried out the levers and pedals on this nonfunctioning tractor.  In her left hand you can see the toy she currently wants to carry everywhere (her affections transfer every week or two), a small plastic black bird from a Lego set, named Bird of course.

Properly rested and reprovisioned, she set off to explore the Hay Maze, a huge pile of bales under a plastic tent.  It included an underground (underhay?) cave and a tunnel, both of which she loved.

 

It was also blisteringly hot in there, being essentially a greenhouse on a sunny day.  I watched from outside one of the doorways, seeing her head bob around, in and out of sight as she navigated the maze, tunnel and cavern.

Until one point where she went out of sight, and didn't come back.  Did I mention there was another exit to the greenhouse on the other end?

Yeah.  She was gone.  A quick look inside the cave confirmed it, so I hustled out of the second exit and went looking for her.  Other plastic structures? Nope.  Food area?  Nope.  Creaky swinging door, half open leading to a dark empty building?

Yeahhh...that's where she'd gone.  I opened the door the rest of the way just in time to see her glance back and disappear out the other end, about twenty feet away.  The other end, which led into a goat pen with goats bigger than she was.

Everyone looked our direction when I burst out of the far end of the building, into the goat pen, hollering "Eddie! Stop right there!" at Eddie, who was about four feet away from a large goat.  Who, in retrospect, was probably more interested in me than in Eddie, as I was still holding the bag of cookies and had not noticed that it had drooped open and was leaking a trail of cookies behind me.  I scooped up Eddie, backtracked toward the building (Eddie helpfully informed me that there was a gate where she had been standing, but I didn't know if it was locked or not), belatedly noticed the cookie trail, and deposited Eddie back outside in the public area.  At which point I noticed something missing.  "Where's Bird, Eddie?"  She looked at me blankly.  She had no idea.  In the hay maze?  In the goat pen?  Somewhere else entirely?  I looked over the fence at the goat pen.  A goat looked back at me, eating a cookie.

I led Eddie back to the hay maze, figuring she'd likely stay put there for thirty seconds, and did a very quick re-entry of the goat pen, picking up cookies and looking for a small piece of black plastic against a dark dirt background.  Yeah, didn't find it.  I went back to the hay maze and had a halfhearted look around on the shifting floor of hay, including Eddie-shoulder height surfaces in the cave area.  There was no way we were going to find Bird.  Eddie was done with the maze now, and we were trying to kill time before we could have a turn at posing for the professional photographer hired for the event, so we went to sit on another tractor.

Eddie was starting to get tired, but she held it together admirably.  With the occasional requests for Bird, and for more hayrides, she got through the photo shoot and we went on one last hay ride.  I'll get the photo shoot pictures back in a few days I think.  We didn't get many shots as the hayride returned while we were doing it, so hopefully some are good ones.

This time, I let Eddie scramble aboard while I got a bucket of gourd ammo.  Eddie 'threw' some but didn't get them very far.  But she enjoyed the ride anyway.  And she still didn't want to get off halfway through.  And at the end, when she understood that it was time for everyone to get off and for her to go home, she insisted on standing here until everyone had safely disembarked.

On the way to the car, Eddie spotted some free-range chickens and decided to help them exercise, chasing them around in circles.  She was giggling up a storm.  I'm not sure if the chickens were as pleased.  She fell asleep on the way home, as I was hoping she'd do.  And luckily, Martin had another lego Bird, so she was able to be reunited with her little plastic friend when she woke up.