Where Milk Comes From

I live in the city.  Well, on the edge of a city anyway, and this looks like where my kids are going to grow up.  Not in the rural setting I came from.  So, I have made a pact with myself.  My kids WILL know where their food comes from.  Today I was able to take Wyatt to a small local dairy to learn where his milk comes from.  Truth be told, I learned a few things too.  I grew up around cattle, not dairy cows and there is a pretty big difference in how the farms operate. 

I was so excited Wyatt would get to spend some time on the farm.  He watched them milk a cow, then feed some of the milk to a calf.  He thought the calf had a pretty funny tongue.  I think he was pretty amazed by all the milk they got out of that cow!

We also got to feed their chickens (Lorelai loved the baby chick that the lady showed her!), ducks, turkeys and watched her feed the baby pigs.  Then the fun part, the kids got to bottle feed a calf.  It was pretty cute.  Wyatt informed the lady he knew what he was doing because he feeds his sister.  She got a good laugh out of that one. 

They had a few items for the kids to play and crawl on and through and a great little hay maze that was more of a raceway for Wyatt than a puzzle. 

The baby pig races were pretty cute but his two favorite parts about the entire trip where.... drum roll.... the airplane play gym and the baby kittens!  We stayed for quite a while after everyone left and he must have carted one of the kittens around for 45 minutes while it clung to the front of his jacket.  It was so cute.  I can remember playing with the little farm cats and kittens as a kid.  Holding one just put a smile on my face.  I can't remember the last time I held a kitten! 

We had such a great time with everyone and Wyatt got to breathe some good country air for a morning.  And, he now knows where his milk comes from.  I can mark it off my Raising Kids Bucket List.  Now if only I could figure out how to sneak one of those kittens past my hunting dogs and my husband we would be in business!
 
Klausmeyer Dairy Farm

The Jersey

I have never been into the latest fashions, I hate doing my hair, mostly because it refuses to cooperate and I don't spend much time on makeup.  I didn't get the dress-me-up-and-make-me-look-pretty gene.  So, I never expected one of my kids to be this way.  No of course it isn't my daughter.  She is way too young to care what I dress her in.  It is my son.  My son LOVES wearing jerseys.  And he is even specific about which top goes with which bottom. More than once I have tried to pair certain shorts with a regular old t-shirt only to be told, "MOM, those go with my jerseys!"  In the heat of this past summer, my son almost every day wore a hot, unbreatheable jersey.  The only time he isn't in one is when they are all dirty and I haven't done the laundry.  He then very sadly asks me why all his jerseys are still dirty and I walk, head down, into the laundry room and start a load.  I pick my battles and this is one I don't want to mess with. 

It makes him immeasurably happy to wear a jersey.  Just look at the smile in this photo.  Ear to ear!  He knows the numbers that go on each and will ask for the specific one.  "Hey Mom?  Is my number 8 jersey dirty?"  He is currently getting worried because his number 1 jersey is getting too small.  It was a hand me down like most that we have and he is dreading the day it goes away.  We have certain places he can't wear them, like church, although church functions are just fine.  He gets to wear them to school, but I did feel the need to let his teacher know I wash them often for fear she would think he wears the same clothes every day.  I know when he is older, I am going to look back at his photos and laugh at the fact that in most every picture he is in, he is wearing a jersey.  Until then, I am just going to keep the washer running and maybe look for a good sale on jerseys. :)

On this Day

On this day, 10 years ago, I was in the Derby school district office turning in paperwork to become a substitute teacher.  The radio was playing as I waited and that was when I heard of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center.  I rushed home, turned on the tv and called my husband who was at work.  I was watching when the second plane hit.  I will never forget the exact angle that plane was banked.  The speed it traveled.  The fire.  I was in the middle of the country but it felt like it was happening in my backyard.  I didn't want to watch yet I couldn't take my eyes off of the dust.  The people.  The photos in my mind kept going back to the people falling, jumping.  All of the paper floating endlessly in the sky.  To this day, I still see it in my mind.  And I wasn't even there.  We live close to an air base and at times, the KC135s fly routes that as they bank to land, look remarkably similar to those planes that hit the towers and I have to look away.

Life changed for me that day.  Life was fragile and I saw it through my own eyes.  My husband was in the Army National Guard.  That day would be the beginning of many nights wondering, worrying if he would be called war.  Enduring the early morning phone calls from his unit to be ready, today just might be the day.  I know now there were several times he waited in line at Fort Riley to leave right then.  Only to be passed over, those around him chosen.  I think we all struggled with the call to action and a call to be safe.  You want to do something but at the same time hold on to your family with all your might. 

Life changed for us.  Like so many.  I don't know why but I have always felt somehow personally part of that day.  I try to take things slower, hug my kids longer and harder, don't sweat the small stuff.  It is hard to do.  We live in a world that moves so fast and those around you don't always appreciate a slower pace.  It is hard to brush off the little things that happen during the day.  It is hard to only worry about those things that can be changed and cope with those that can't.  I am not as tough as I once was.  More quiet.  Less opinionated.  More accepting.  I see significance in the rolling hills of the prairie, a dad playing with his child at the park, my dog placing her head on my foot.  Important things.

It has been 10 years since 9/11 but the day never seems to get easier to get through.  The following is how I saw the events of today, 10 years later.  The memorials are beautiful and perfect and I hope to visit them one day.  We should all visit them one day. 


On This Day

On This Day, the breeze blows sweetly through a field of flowers
Grace bobbing in the wind

On This Day, the bells ring
Echoing through the emptiness

On This Day, fingertips trace a line
A line that makes a name, a name that was a life

On This Day, a voice speaks
Of a father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, partner, friend

On This Day, tears still fall
Welling up in the depths of lives moving on

On This Day, the silence is the same
A quiet that envelopes the heart