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HAWTHORNE VALLEY FARM DAY 3: PS My Boots are Covered in Poop

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Dear Mommy and Dad,
I am having a good time and we are just about to have quiet time. At 4:00 I will be milking a cow! Right now I see a rainbow on the ceiling. Tell Carter that I will be back in one day, so have a good time. Bye!
Love, Myles

Dear Pop and Dad,
Thank you for the letter. I thought it was very creative and funny. (A word which here means silly and exciting) ((Lemony Snicket reference))
Love, Elijah

Dear Mom and Dad,
I am having a good time at the farm and I miss you. I got to make apple cider. I got to make butter and clean the cow barn.
Love, Jett

Dear Mom and Dad and Kiyomi,
I have been good this week. The lunches at the farm are really good but I still would like some meat. My favorite thing so far has been the lasagna. We have had lots of jobs like having to clean out a poopy and smelly barn. We get to milk cows and walk sheep. We get to feed the pigs and make and eat dinner. Our room is a lot bigger than last farm trip. I will see if I can get some recipes.
Love with lots of hay, Madiba

Dear Mom and Dad,
The farm is great and yes, there are horses. I missed you a lot and I am going to be happy to come home but I also really liked the trip.
Love, Dennis
PS: Can we get ice cream when I get back?

Dear Mom, Dad and Isabella,
I am enjoying being a vegetarian. I didn’t get to ring the bell at mealtime. I fed animals like pigs, horses, sheep, and cows. I have picked many vegetables. The farm looks the same as it looked last time.
Love, Alfredo
PS: Can I have a cheeseburger when I get home?

Dear family,
I miss you a lot. And I want to come back but I also like it here. The food is pretty good and the activities are fun. I liked feeding pigs apples and making apple cider.
Love, Beckett
PS: When I get back I want a big cheeseburger.
PSS: I didn’t walk a dog on a leash but I walked a sheep.

Dear Mom, Dad, Will, Rico and Lola,
I didn’t like the farm as much as last year but it was better than I thought it would be. I like the food but I also miss meat. I’ve been doing a lot of activities, one of my favorites is horseback riding.
Love, Zach

Dear Mom, Dad, Freddie and Ringo,
The farm is fun. I got to hike up a hill and there was lots of poop. So far lasagna has been my favorite meal. I miss sleeping in my bed with my dog.
Love, Shoshi

Hello family,
Guess what! I lost a tooth. I have my tooth in a little bag. I am in a room with Rubie, Kate, Ella, Ren and Shoshi…pretty nice. I think you would like the food here – it’s all very healthy. Have I had desert? No. For snack, we normally have fruit or popcorn. We have playtime. We have rest time. We also have sleep time and work time.
Love, Grace

Dear Daddy, Mommy, and Jack,
I have had a lot of fun on the farm trip. I have milked cows, made butter, picked up a chicken, cleaned a poopy barn, herded the cows, and gone on a night hike. We also went on another hike on the same day. The food is really good. Today we had lasagna with eggplant in it. Yesterday we had burritos, I ate five of them – they were really good. I share a bunk with Grace, Ren, Shoshi, Kate and Rubie. I am really excited to ride the horse. I have gotten over my fear of climbing wooden structures. I am still afraid of climbing trees. I am glad I have not gone to the garden yet because Sofia said there were lots of spiders there. The other day I freaked out about a baby spider because it’s web was stuck on my leg. I started running around screaming and I cried the tiniest bit.
Love you, miss you and can’t wait to see you soon,
Ella

Dear Mommy,
I really like being with the animals because the pigs are really cute and the cows are really funny because they always stop in the middle and poop. I am in the pink room in the farmhouse. The kids in my room are Ella, Shoshi, Grace, Ren and Rubie. We’ve been having so much fun. All of the meals are really good. I always try something at the meals even if I have never had it before. I can’t wait to see you and give you a huge hug. I love you.
Love, Kate

Dear Mommy and Daddy and Alejandro,
It’s been really good. I got to ride horses. I love vegetarian food. I went on a hike and Ella and I went to a fire pit. So basically I love the farm.
Love, Sofia

Dear Family,
I have been having a good time on the farm – it’s really fun. There are horses and cows and calves and sheep. Sometimes you have to get up at 5:30- it makes you really tired. It’s really pretty here. I am enjoying my bunk group because I get a whole bunkbed to myself. How is Snoopy? I tricked one of the farmers that my name is Taylor, he believed me. We did watercolors of the garden and the farm. And I rode a horse.
Love, Violet
PS: I got horse poop on my pants and I have a new best friend named Three Fingers.

Dear Mom, Dad, and Gray,
We got to walk to sheep. Mine had a black nose with a white dot. We put a leash on it. We went to the Hawthorne Valley School with Cassidy and Dennis. My sheep really liked eating grass so it was slow. Dennis’ sheep liked to pee and while it was peeing it liked to have a snack of grass. Cassidy’s didn’t pee or eat but it was very slow at walking. In the end, mine got there first and then Dennis’ and then Cassidy’s. I will tell you the rest at home I miss you.
Love, Ren
PS: Can we get pizza from the store when I get home?

Dear Mommy, Daddy, Sylvie, Chase, and Baby,
I have been having a lot of fun even though there is no meat and I don’t really like the food. I have collected chicken eggs, scooped up horse and cow poop, and I fed pigs. I won a sheep race. When I get back for dinner please can you make rice and lentils and lots and lots of chicken? Can’t wait to tell you more when I get back.
Love, Rubie

Dear Mom, Dad, and Zoe,
I miss you a lot and I have been having a great time. Cassidy, Tess, Sofia and Violet are in my cabin. Last night Violet was snoring and I couldn’t fall asleep. I am really excited to see you. I have been climbing a lot of trees and I know that you love when I get to do that.
Love, Verity

Dear Taetles,
I loved the letter you sent me. And I love you guys so much! I am having a great time on the farm. The food is really delicious. And the chores are really fun. I am getting to know a lot of my friends a lot better. There are really beautiful hikes here.
Love, Tess
PS: My shoes are very muddy.

Dear Mommy and Daddy and others,
I am having fun on the farm. I share a room with Verity, Tess, Sofia, and Violet. I am still having trouble sleeping. I can’t wait to see you. As you know, I am not eating much. We went on a hike in the dark and it was really pretty. There is a baby cow named “Lick” and he is adorable.
Love, Cassidy
PS: My shoes are covered in poop.

Farm Trip: Day 2

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“For whatever we lost (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea..”(or on the farm)
–  E.E. Cummings

What did you discover today?

Gus: We learned that the cows are really protective of their children and we saw one learning to go into her stall today.

Colette: I discovered that in nature there are a lot of different shapes – there are heart shaped leaves and herbs.

Dora: I discovered the best raspberries I’ve ever tasted. We picked them fresh.

Olivia P: …that Mark Teague who wrote and illustrated the Three Little Pigs book was making a video at the farm with the pigs.

Tilda: …that cows like to poop a lot. Their tail lifts up right when they are going to poop.”

Piper: “That it’s really fast to make butter if you just shake the milk.”

Johnny: “…how to pick certain kinds of vegetables like beets. We also tasted some plants – I liked the sour chew and the raspberries. I also learned how to cut onions”

Zach: “I discovered that adding apple cider to soup actually makes it taste better.”

Eli: “That it’s really fun and hard to herd the cows in but I found it very interesting. The part that was hard is the cows sometimes didn’t want to move.”

Jack: “I discovered that they make really good food on the farm, like the sauerkraut!”

Ben: “I discovered that I do not like molasses. I also learned that if I go inside the pigpen the pigs will nibble my boots and they won’t break.”

Emily: “I cooked pumpkin soup and ginger cookies and they were really good.”

Lila: “I discovered that it’s hard to draw the horses because they keep moving.”

Margaret: “I discovered that cows are actually not very scary, they are harmless. I thought they would all be raging towards me but they didn’t.”

Olivia B: “I discovered that cleaning the barn is really hard then all of your work really doesn’t pay off because the cows just go poop again.”

Oni: “I discovered that riding a horse isn’t so scary. I trotted!”

Kate: “I discovered not to go through an electrified fence and you should just use the gate.”

Meadow: “I learned that you can really trust horses because I lied down on one and he didn’t move. When she was galloping and I would tap her neck, she would slow down.”

Polly: “I discovered that when you herd cows, you can tap them on the butt lightly to make them go.”

Freddie: “I discovered it was really gross feeding the pigs. We had to give them this food that looked like it was covered in mud.

Cooper: “I discovered that pigs aren’t that bad – they’re actually really cute. I noticed that they just kept eating and eating and they really wouldn’t stop even when I had a piece of zucchini in my hand.”

 

Farm Trip: Day 1

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“I thought it was going to be really gross but it was really fun”

“… just learning to be in nature”

 

Gus: “I really liked the cow. There were two guys using the electric milker. They cleaned the utter. He squirted some milk and dumped it out, then he let us milk it. He taught us how the electric milkers work. There was a vacuum that somehow pulled the rubber in and out – it worked like a hand… The pigs are really loveable.”

Eli: “When we were feeding the pigs we had to give them whey and it’s basically bad milk that cows produce. My favorite part of the day was milking the cow because we got to do it for awhile and the cow we milked wasn’t sensitive. My most challenging part of the day was getting to the farm.”

Cooper: “I learned how to play tetherball. It’s a game of strength – you have to hit the ball as hard as you can and try to get it all the way around and you win.”

Zach: “I liked seeing the pigs because I got to feed them and it was really fun. I fed them grass.”

Kate: “I liked riding horses today. We learned how to pick up poop and how to be nice and gentle with the horses and how to get big rocks out of the ground so it won’t get the horses in danger. I liked swinging on a rope.”

Colette: “For me, it was the horseback riding, we scooped up the horse poop, usually I don’t do that. I thought it was going to be really gross but it was really fun.”

Piper: “My favorite thing…I liked making butter while Sarah read a story to us.”

Tilda: I liked cooking dinner. We made potato leek soup. We had to cut onions and skin potatoes and a lot of us cried.”

Johnny: “I liked riding Daisy. Daisy is a horse. My favorite part was when I trotted.”

Polly: “The most exciting part of my day…at first when we got here we got to see the playground and I realized we had more play time. I also liked making dinner. We made apple crisp for dessert.”

Lila: ”I was surprised that they had the biggest pigs in the world here, the male pig is 700 pounds. And the horses are really cute and my favorite one is Sierra. I also really like the beds because they are better than last year.

Dora: I usually eat meat, I really don’t mind not having meat. Lunch wasn’t what I would usually eat but I liked it a lot, the sauce and everything was really good, especially the sweet potatoes.

Olivia P. “I thought that bringing in the cows and the bull was hard because almost every cow stopped to poop and the baby cows would run out of the fence, so Johanna had to always get them.”

Margaret: “I saw pigs. The pigs are not very smelly and not very shy – they come up to you in a nice way. Then you watch them. They make snorting noises. There are big bales of hay – I learned that each one is 700 pounds.”

Meadow: “We rode in a giant van and it was really fun and we saw a giant bull.”

Freddie: “We had to herd the cows -that means making them move somewhere by using a stick. It was poopy and fun. The cow poop was really gross.”

Jack: “I liked learning how to play tetherball.”

Oni: “I liked riding in the van and herding the cows. You don’t go in front of them, you go in back of them. And you have to wave a bamboo stick and they’ll thing you are bigger than them and move.”

Olivia B: “It was really fun to make the dinner and the dessert and we got to try some of the things in the kitchen. We got to try tomatoes. Gus and Eli were cutting onions and they started to cry – it was kind of funny to see the boys cry.”

Emily: “I liked riding the horses and petting animals and combing them. Once I almost fell off because it was a different saddle than I am used to.

Ben: “The most challenging part of my day was milking the cows. It was hard to milk because I’m used to seeing it different ways in movies. You don’t pull, you just keep the utters there. The most fun part of the day was feeding the pigs and catching the chickens. I also liked riding the horses and just learning to be in nature and to live outside and to learn about the farm. I am excited to herd the cows.”