Don’t those look yummy? Victoria and I had a full day today, starting with a trip to the library to pick up some photocopies for my current volume (one topic: St. John of the Cross, my current wordpress avatar) and then a stop for a haircut. Her self-created sideburns are still too short to do much with, but we tried to smooth them in slightly.
Then, a trip to get Eggmaster’s Father’s Day present, which I look forward to documenting in a few days.
Quick lunch at home, along with some Electric Company, now available from Netflix (more on that another day), and then off to Fresh Earth Farms, an organic CSA farm near the cities. (In the Afton/Hastings area, for any MNs reading along.) Our new homeschool group had organized a tour.
It was a sunny, hot day, and all the children were wilting. Many of the kids were 5 and under, so they especially did not have the stamina for walking around a dusty, hot farm listening to grown-ups talk about growing methods. But Victoria and I got up close and personal with some plants, and she got to feed a carrot to a horse. Then after many hot and sweaty families had cleared out someone said they were going to pick berries. This livened Victoria right back up, and soon she was running down the road to the strawberry patch.
She went from “I want to go home” to “The farm is great” in about 20 seconds, and cheered herself from plant to plant saying “These are good berries,” “We are great berry pickers,” “These berries are going to be so good,” and “I’m so excited!” I dragged her away when I could feel the back of my neck starting to complain about the exposure. (Foolishly I wore a baseball cap rather than a sun hat.)
The berries are tiny, as you can see, but quite flavorful.
Red Sea School 
It goes to show how some of these homeschooling field trips can be terrible or wonderful, depending on how they are approached. I once organized a behind-the-scenes tour of a supermarket. We were such a big group they split us into two smaller ones. Our group had an intensely boring time thanks to one woman who dominated the conversation with questions for her much older child. The other group had a blast, doing a whole lot of hands-on things that we never got to do.
I’m glad Victoria isn’t pining for her big sister too much 😉
Those look yummy, and it look like the little one is getting a lot of special one on one.