We wanted to arrive early in the day, planning to get there at 10, so I was packed and ready to go by 8:15 or so, we had some snacks but no food-food for lunch. That gave us time to stop and pick up something along the way. As I shut the back of the van, it popped back open. I fiddled with the latch, no go. I messed with it for 10 minutes before giving up and driving off to the local mechanic. He was off test driving a car, so we had to sit and wait a while. A couple other guys came over and messed with the latch and could not get it to open, so I was already doing the budget in my head and trying to come up with something to appease the kids for missing out on swimming with their friends (and that was after having to get up so early!).
Jerry came over and poked it with his pen knife, wiggled the handle and viola, it works again. No charge. We were on the road after a half hour delay and opted to just go right to the creek and play then have our snack at the picnic and grab 'real food' on the way home.
We had the radio blasting, everyone was in a great mood. I was relieved the van had a full tank of gas, fresh oil change and safety check just the day before and the AC was freezing us out of our seats. We sang loudly and badly and between songs we knew, everyone was chatty and we laughed. Jake tried to insult Chandler with either something about a photo or a pickle, he said it was 'not fully articulated in my mind' before he said it. For some reason, that set us all off laughing like crazy some more.
We arrived around 10:20 and parked and started blowing up floats. Sunni was not far behind us and before we all got ourselves ready to walk to the creek, Amanda and Stephanie pulled in next to us.
We set up at the falls-next time we are going further upstream so the little kids can play easier. It's too crowded at the top sometimes. Yesterday was not too packed at all, but some woman was smoking like an old Chevy. It was rank. There's enough space there to avoid stuff like that.
After sitting and chatting, playing in the water and chatting and watching the big kids run off up the creek and float back down over and over, I ended up by myself in the creek on my old floating chair, just watching the kids one way and the moms up on the bank with their little kids, feeling a little bummed that I only had to glance over to make sure the kids were not roughhousing each other to the point of drowning now and then. I finally made my way up to the pile of blankets and toys and snacks and paraphernalia that people tote around when they have kids in the single digits. As I sat down on my float-because I did not bring any of that stuff and had no where else to sit that was not on the dirt-they all were telling me how they were envious of me just sitting out there in the water with nothing to do. hahaha. I guess it goes both ways.
The kids were chilled through and ready to head out so we did a caravan to the U-pick to have our food and explore the farm some. There are 2 donkeys that the kids spooked and they meandered up into another area and I did not get any photos of them.
We had our food and chatted a while, the kids ran and ran and played, so Stephanie and I wandered through the fields checking out the work they had been doing and looking at what was growing. To our surprise, there were a few ripe berries scattered around! So of course we had to sample.
Here is my scientific experiment. Are the berries in the sun juicier than the ones in the shade? I had to have several and Stephanie helped with some research of her own. I finally decided they were all about the same level of yummy, though the sunny ones were a bit sweeter. Maybe. I ended up picking a pound to take home for further investigating.
These are scuppernog, which I LOVE. I was thrilled to see them making so many little noggins, there should be gallons this fall.
The figs were covered over, they planted a field of sunflowers and there were crabapples galore. I don't think I have ever seen crabapples in June, maybe I am not paying attention or maybe I am thinking 'apple:Autumn'. Our crabapple tree does not have NEARLY the level of crab the one there did. It's about an hour south...maybe that has something to do with it? Anyway, enough about that, haha!
The pond is swimmable, but...eee! I would paddle around on our floaty boat all day, but I don't think I want IN the water.
It was SO hot, oh my goodness. I had sweat running down my back, it felt like bugs racing the great Esther course. My yoga pants were indecent PDQ!
This pig REALLY wants to come live at my house. Poor thing, he has no friends at the farm!
Matt was 2 hours late getting off work, getting new accounts is great, but setting them up takes loads of time and running around, he has been exhausted all week. Glad it's a 3-day weekend! :)
