Farmer-tainment

I was up before everyone else today and took some time to flip through old pictures on my cell phone. The pictures go back several years, and since we have younger kids that is nearly half of their life span. As I looked at how much they’ve changed, I began to notice a trend - something I will now dub “farmer-tainment”.

I began to notice the variety of creative ways my children find entertainment on the farm. They’ve come up with some real doozies. One of my favorite quotes from my son was “Hey Mom! Come watch this dangerous and fairly stupid thing I’m going to do!” They can find any farm gadget or object and make it into something else. Many of their adventure, such as the dead mole my son carried around the house for an afternoon, involve smaller animal or things that will become animals. We have hatched ducks and butterflies, built corrals from Lincoln logs for toads, watched tadpoles develop and then release them into the creek. We have warmed up chicks, pigs and lambs with my hair dryer to save a life. My son has built forts from all kinds of things, forged imaginary kingdoms on top of hay bales and even made a game to play in our hay meadow called “Hide and Go Eat” where some kids were predators and some were prey.

I remember similar creative antics with my brother when we were younger. Like one time we pretended to “fish” with cattle whips out of the back of the pickup while my dad was checking fence. We would catch imaginary fish and put them in the “holding tank” which was the tool box in the pickup bed. I even created a GI Joe clubhouse in our chicken house using a well-designed piece of paper as my electronic key code pad to gain entry and we made a McDonalds out of plywood and a —-- with our menu written on my Big Chief Tablet. We faced an early closure due to a snake that started living under our floor.

I thought it might be fun to share some of my photos that I found this morning to show you the lighter side of farm life. As I looked through them all, I realized that I live with a pretty fabulous group of humans and that we will have such great memories of the moments we have shared on our farm together.

Feel free to share your farmer-tainment stories in the comments!

Feed sack races across the yard.