Friendly Haven Farm

I'm homeschooling Emma this year in Kindergarten. We joined a homeschooling field trip group and are going on some fun fieldtrips during the year. The first one was on last Monday (Oct 6) to Friendly Haven Farm - a farm north of us in the Battleground/Hockingson area. The weather was even decent; it was chilly but it only sprinkled a few times while we were there. It poured for about four days straight previously, so I felt really lucky that we had decent weather. We had to wear our raincoats and boots for mud.
Good joke someone told me while I was there "It only rained twice last week.... 3 days the first time, four days the second time." Ya gotta live here to really get it :)
Anyways....
First, we learned all about honey bees. It was really interesting - some facts you may not know - Queen bees live about 5 years - all the other bees live around 60 days - 6 months. Queen bees lay around 1000 - 2000 eggs per day - every day. In a hive if there is typically 20,000 bees; 19,900 are female and 100 are males. This farm had four hives. She usually collects the honey in the spring. We learned a lot more facts about bees and even got to hold some dead bees (eeuu - Emma wouldn't touch them, but of course Dayton wanted to).

This picture is a bowl of flowers and honey that she had on her porch to attract the honey bees for us to see. (It's kind of hard to see the bees but there were quite a few there.)


Next, we went to the chicken coop. The kids helped shuck the corn, and then got to feed the corn to the chickens. Dayton & Emma really enjoyed that. We got to go up into their hen house, and there we saw brown and green eggs. Emma even found an egg herself that she got to take home with her. We ate it that night, & it was delicious. We learned all about chickens and eggs. Some interesting facts - if an egg is fresh, it will sink when put in pot of water; - if it floats, it is old. When you crack an egg, if the yolk is really big & swollen (is that the right word??), then it is fresh - if the yolk is more flat, then it is old. Eggs that come from the market are all washed and therefore need to be refrigerated. However, if you have get a fresh egg and don't wash it - it won't need to be refrigerated. Eggs have a membrane around the shell that keeps out bacteria. When you wash the egg, you also wash the membrane away, and thus that is why you need to refrigerate it because it is susceptible to bacteria now.

The chickens in their coop

Emma feeding the chickens

Dayton feeding the chickens

More clucking chickens

Emma showing me the egg she found

Dayton looking in the hen house

The hen house (It's built on a trailor and therefore can be moved to different fields all over their farm).

Dayton - chasing a hen trying to feed it.


Next, we fed the corn stalks to the cows. On this farm they only feed their cows greens (grass, stalks, etc.), no grains. They told us grains are like candy to the cows - they love them and it also helps them grow really quickly - that is why commercial farms use grains. However grains are harder on their stomachs - & thus the stinky smell at most farms with cows. This farm did not smell at all. The kids had fun feeding the cows. They had an electric wire fence in between us & the cows - to keep everyone safe - but let me say trying to keep a three year old boy (who was very interested in the cows and feeding them) from touching that fence kept me hopping. I had to be constantly watching his every move (& helping him reach over the fence) & Dayton being the independent boy that he is - wanted to do things all by himself. One time when I was shucking corn - I looked over to Dayton who was shucking corn next to me. He was gone. I looked around the farm & found him climbing on one of the riding tractor lawn mower. He really didn't want to get off of it.

Feeding the cows the corn stalks

A couple of the cows eatting

Emma and some cows

Dayton and some cows

Then we went over and gathered apples that had fallen from the trees and put them in a big bin to make a worm compost for the gardens. We gathered fallen apples, leaves, grass, mud, and mixed them all in a big bin. Dayton loved playing in the mud and getting himself all dirty. He is all boy! We also got to pick some apples from the tree and eat them. They are antique apples - small and sour.

Dayton picking up apples

Emma picking apples


We spent about 3 hours on the farm - they both told me they had fun and they both zonked out on the way home.