Moving On

Our Vermont farm vacation (those last two words together always make me smile because living and working on a farm is anything but a vacation!) was a huge success. I am reliving it multiple times a day with M who, seeing the pictures and videos we took on the farm on a Picasa slideshow, has requested it (“farm amimals? pees?”) hourly from then on. It’s better than all the nonsense and mindlessness on TV, so I give in half the time…

Anyway, we left Thursday morning, but not too early because we all slept until 8:30am and D insisted that I not rush us out the door because this was meant to be a fun and leisurely time. I like to get there and get our money’s worth, but I have to say, I enjoyed the leisure part very much. We stopped for lunch in a small town diner halfway there. It was so quaint and fit in exactly with what I pictured stopping at on the way to a farm vacation. M did really well during the ride up; he had plenty of books and animal DVDs to occupy himself. We pulled over once and took out his potty for him to peepee in, which he did. No accidents at all, amazingly enough, on the three and a half hour ride!

We got to the farm in enough time to check into the room we’d be staying at in the farmhouse (we shared a bathroom with two other rooms) and do some exploring for our 6pm dinner. The house is exactly as you’d picture a farmhouse: big, old, homey, country-like, cozy. We explored it a bit, but M was more anxious to start meeting all those real, live animals wondering around. He met the goats and the chickens first, and then moved on to the cows and the cats. I’m not sure Micah could have had any more fun than he did on this vacation. I know he enjoyed every single second he was on the farm, which made me glad D convinced me to go ahead and book the entire thing. We wrestled him down for a nap (actually, it didn’t take too much convincing after all the excitement) before dinner and we rested, too. He slept on a big boy cot and did so well for naps and bedtime that we set up his toddler bed at home as soon as we got back. Dinner was served family-style, so we got to meet all the other guests staying there. Another couple was expecting their first on the same day we are expecting our second. And he is a cardiology fellow at a Boston hospital, so he and David compared doctoring notes. We enjoyed each others company very much and Kelli and I keep in contact via email these last days before our worlds are turned upside down for a bit. But, back to dinner. We were there for two of them, and two breakfasts, and they were so delicious. Dinner was complete with dessert and coffee or tea. All dishes were homemade with fresh ingredients; it couldn’t have gotten any better.

After dinner, we visited the cow barn again to watch the night milking. Micah loved feeding them hay, talking to them, and being licked by them. We also visited the litter of new kittens that were born the night before. Their mother had hid them in bales of hay down the hill from the main farm area. M was fascinated by them, but was more interested in the grown cat that was meowing at him and lying on his back for M to pet him.

Finally, bedtime came and after M was tucked in bed, D and I got our respective reading material and went out to the living room. Little to no technology takes some getting used to, and there was probably a little withdrawl, but it was great. We didn’t get cell phone reception, but there was WiFi, which D tried to avoid. Before we went to bed, other guests came by the living room to chat, which was nice. So ended our first day on a farm. We began our second day way too early at 7am with, “Mommy, Daddy, shoes on! Cow!”